■ ■ Soffit HH 




■ ■ I ■ 

■ ■ 

PJfffe -'i-v' ''-'V,.i! 

■ ■■ 

WW 

■ 

■ 
■ 




■ ■ i 

■ 

■ 



H 



1 



P 



m 




i 



HE 



H$fl 



■ 



i^^HHi IB9 Mm 



mm 




>°% 




1>«* O^Mf^?* C**a - 







* * * o ^ 



° <^ft S* * 

7 * .\,s> *t 







«? ^ • SSI© ♦ AX ^& o m/JIAK *«?*&• 



> 







fcp^ 



» 4 o 




<^ ' • » o 



r «» 




♦' *u .Y/MW<r A ^>, 



O • A 



:• A <. 







4°c 








£*, 










O N O 



*^ •V^SiBir- ^^' njSB^V- '^^ 



5 ' *> (V 




77* * A <s 











^ A^ 





V»Cr 








4 o 







THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE 

General Editor, C. H. Herfobd, Litt.D., University of Manchester 



AS YOU LIKE IT 



EDITED BY 

J. C. SMITH, M.A. (Edin), B.A. (Oxon.) 

LECTURER IN OWENS COLLEGE, VICTORIA UNIVERSITY; SOMETIME 
EXHIBITIONER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 



AMERICAN EDITION 

REVISED BY 

ERNEST HUNTER WRIGHT, Ph.D. 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



•?«$%>» 



THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE 

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 

Edited by Edmund K. Chambers, B.A., Oxford. 
AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Edited by J. C. Smith, M.A., Edinburgh. 

CORIOLANUS. 

Edited by Edmund K. Chambers, B.A., Oxford. 

CYMBELINE. 

Edited by A. J. Wyatt, M.A., Cambridge. 
BAMLET. 

Edited by Edmund K. Chambers, B.A., Oxford. 
HENRY IV— FIRST PART. 

Edited by F. W. Moorman, B.A., Yorkshire College. 
HENRY V. 

Edited by G. C. Moore Smith, M.A., Cambridge. 
HENRY VIII. 

Edited by D. Nichol Smith,M.A., Edinburgh. 
JULIUS O^SAR. 

Edited by Arthur D. Innes, M.A., Oxford. 

KING JOHN. 

Edited by G. C. Moore Smith, M.A., Cambridge. 
KING LEAR. 

Edited by D. Nichol Smith, M.A., Edinburgh. 
MACBETH. 

Edited by Edmund K. Chambers, B.A., Oxford. ■ 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 

Edited by J. C. Smith, M.A., Edinburgh. 
RICHARD II. 

Edited by C. H. Herford, Litt.D., Cambridge. 
RICHARD HI. 

Edited by George Macdptfald, M.A V Oxford. 
ROMEO AND JULIET. 

Edited by Robert A. Law, Ph.D., Harvard. 

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 

Edited by H. L. Withers, B.A., Oxford. 
THE TEMPEST. 

Edited by F. S. Boas, M.A., Oxford. 
THE WINTER'S TALE. 

Edited by H. B. Charlton, M.A., Manchester. 

TWELFTH NIGHT. 

Edited by Arthur D. Innes, M.A., Oxford. 

The remaining volumes are in preparation, 



COPTBIGHT, 1916, BY D. C. HKATH & Co. 

IH6 If * *, 



©CLA438716 




OCT -5 1916 



GENERAL PREFACE 

In this edition of Shakespeare an attempt is made 
to present the greater plays of the dramatist in their 
literary aspect, and not merely as material for the study 
of philology or grammar. Criticism purely verbal and 
textual has only been included to such an extent as 
may serve to help the student in the appreciation of 
the essential poetry. Questions of date and literary 
history have been fully dealt with in the Introductions, 
but the larger space has been devoted to the interpre- 
tative rather than the matter-of-fact order of scholar- 
ship. ^Esthetic judgments are never final, but the 
Editors have attempted to suggest points of view from 
which the analysis of dramatic motive and dramatic 
character may be profitably undertaken. In the Notes 
likewise, while it is hoped that all unfamiliar expressions 
and allusions have been adequately explained, yet it 
has been thought even more important to consider the 
dramatic value of each scene, and the part which it 
plays in relation to the whole. These general princi- 
ples are common to the whole series; in detail each 
Editor is alone responsible for the play or plays that 
have been intrusted to him. 

Every volume of the series has been provided with a 
Glossary, an Essay upon Metre, and an Index; and 
Appendices have been added upon points of special 
interest which could not conveniently be treated in the 
Introduction or the Notes. The text is based by the 
several Editors on that of the Globe edition. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Introduction v 

Dramatis Persons xxiv 

As You Like It 1 

Notes 101 

Appendix A — Had Shakespeare read "The 

Tale of Gamelyn " ? ........ 173 

Appendix B — On Some Supposed Inconsisten- 
cies in Act I 175 

Appendix C — Metre 177 

Glossary 187 

Index of Words 197 

General Index . 199 



INTRODUCTION 

1. LITERARY HISTORY OF THE PLAY 

As You Like It was first printed in the collected edition 
of Shakespeare's plays known as the First Folio, 1623. No Quarto 
exists, or in all likelihood ever existed, for the play is mentioned 
by the printers of the First Folio among those that "are not for- 
merly entred to other men." Various points in the text, especially 
the form of the stage directions, make it probable that the play 
was originally printed from an acting copy. 

Though it was probably put on the boards as early as 1600, 
no actual performance is recorded during Shakespeare's lifetime, or 
until long after his death. But Oldys has preserved a tradition that 
Shakespeare himself acted in the play, in the part of Adam. A 
younger brother of Shakespeare's, according to Oldys, was alive 
after the Restoration. In his youth he had often gone up to Lon- 
don to see Shakespeare act, and in his old age was naturally much 
questioned for reminiscences of his brother, "especially in his 
dramatic character. But all that could be recollected from him 
of his brother Will in that station [i.e. as an actor] was the faint, 
general, and almost lost ideas he had of having once seen him act 
a part in one of his own comedies, wherein, being to personate a 
decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, and appeared so weak and 
drooping and unable to walk, that he was forced to be supported 
and carried by another person to a table, at which he was seated 
among some company, who were eating, and one of them sung 
a song." This description applies accurately to the entrance of 
Orlando with Adam at the end of the second act. 

After the Restoration several of Shakespeare's plays were revived, 
in somewhat mangled forms ; but As You Like It was not among 
them. Our usual authorities, at least, say nothing of any such 
revival ; and, as will be seen, there is positive evidence to the con- 
trary. It was not till 1723 that Charles Johnson produced an adap- 



vi INTRODUCTION 

tation of it at Drury Lane, with the title of Love in a Forest. In 
his Prologue Johnson says : 

" In Honour to his Name and this learn'd Age, 
Once more your much-lov'd Shakespeare treads the Stage ; " 

and declares that his whole ambition is 

"The Scene from Time and Error to restore, 
And give the Stage from Shakespeare one play more." 

Evidently, then, Johnson's was the first revival, at least in that 
generation. To suit the taste of that " learn'd Age," Johnson cuts 
out the purely comic and pastoral characters, introduces the bur- 
lesque of Pyramus and Thisbe from A Midsummer Night's Dream, 
makes Oliver kill himself, and marries Celia to Jaques, who, to fit 
him for playing the cynic in love, is furnished with Benedick's 
speeches from Much Ado. This atrocious medley had a run of a 
week. 

More thoroughgoing, and even more atrocious, is The Modern 
Receipt, or a Cure for Love, published by one J. C. in 1739. "J. C." 
follows Johnson in his omissions; his additions are all his own. 
He too marries Celia to Jaques, and their love-making bulks more 
largely in the play than does the wooing of Orlando and Rosalind. 

In 1740 As You Like It was restored to the boards, with Quin 
as Jaques and Mrs. Pritchard as Rosalind, and ran for tweuty-five 
nights. Since then its popularity has rarely flagged. Eighteenth- 
century critics mention the Jaques of Quin and Sheridan, the Touch- 
stone of Macklin and King, and thelRosalind of Mrs. Barry, Mrs. 
Pritchard, and Peg Woffington. But the great Rosalind of the 
century was Mrs. Jordan, who first took the part in 1789. She 
made Rosalind a mere tomboy, — "a tousell'd hoyden" is Mr. 
Verity's phrase, — but her smile was irresistible. Mrs. Siddons 
(1785) was the first to bring out the dignity and womanliness of 
Rosalind, a side of her character to which later actresses have not 
failed to do justice. In the nineteenth century we had the revival 
by Macready, and the Jaques of Kemble and Hermann Vezin, and 
the Rosalind of Helen Faucit (Lady Martin), Ada Rehan, and Mod- 
jeska. Lady Martin was perhaps the most famous Rosalind of the 
English stage. She has written about Rosalind as well as acted her ; 
and readers can still enjoy her tender and vivid conception of the 
part in the most delightful of her essays. 1 

1 Some of Shakespeare's Female Characters. 



INTRODUCTION vii 

The play has long been a favorite in Germany. Vincke 1 mentions 
as many as seven adaptations between 1848 and 1870. All these 
adaptations take the form of compression, a compression chiefly 
exercised upon the forest scenes; and exhibit a feeling, as Vincke 
puts it, that the superstructure is too airy for the massive pedestal. 
There may be some force in this from a theatergoer's point of view ; 
but to a reader, at any rate to an English-speaking reader, it seems 
to betray a certain obtuseness as to the real theme and interest of 
the play. Perhaps the wit suffers in translation. 

In France there is George Sand's famous adaptation (1856). 
In her Comme il vous plaira, Jaques is the real hero, and ultimately 
marries Celia, while Audrey at the last moment throws over Touch- 
stone for William. Here, too, the forest scenes are curtailed. In- 
deed the whole tone of the play is altered and the center of interest 
quite displaced. 

2. DATE OF COMPOSITION 

External evidence consists of references to the play in records 
that we can date, and gives a limit before which it must have been 
written. 

(1) As You Like It is entered in the Stationers' Registers, under 
date August 4th, 1600, 2 as a book "to be stayed" (i.e. not printed). 

(2) In Thomas Morley's First Booke of Ayres, printed at London 
in 1600, one of the songs of this play ("It was a lover and his lass," 
Act v, sc. 3) is set to music. Morley does not claim the words 
of his songs ; he must have borrowed this from Shakespeare, unless, 
indeed, they both took if from some older source. But this particu- 
lar song corresponds, both in its position and in its sentiments, to 
Corydon's song in Lodge's novel — "A blithe and bonny country 
lass." This seems to settle the question of authorship, and with it 
the upper limit of the date. 

(3) Negatively, external evidence gives also a lower limit. As 
You Like It is not included in the list of Shakespeare's plays in 
Meres's Palladis Tamia (1598). Hence, on external evidence alone, 
the date of composition is virtually fixed to the years 1598-1600; 
and, as Henry V and Much Ado were probably both written during 
these years, and before As You Like It, we are practically confined 
to 1600. 

References in the play to events that we can date give a limit 

1 "Wie es euch gefdli" auf der Buhne: Jahrbuch, vol. 13, p. 186. 

2 The year is not actually given, but is safely inferred from the preceding 
entry, and from the fact that Much Ado and Henry V, which are "stayed" 
along with As You Like It, were published in August, 1600. 



viii INTRODUCTION 

after which it must have been written. The allusions in As You 
Like It generally go to confirm the results of the external evidence. 
Thus (1) the line "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?" 
(ih. 5. 82) is a quotation from Marlowe's Hero and Leander, which 
was published in 1598. (2) The expression "like one another 
as halfpence are" (hi. 2. 372) refers to the halfpence of Elizabeth, 
in use till 1601. (3) The simile "like Diana in the fountain" (iv. 
1. 154) may have been suggested by a statue of that goddess set up 
in West Cheap in 1596 and in ruins by 1603. 

But there remain two troublesome references. (4) When Rosa- 
lind (iv. 1. 193) swears "by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous," 
she has been thought to refer to a statute of 1605 to restrain the 
abuses of players. (5) Again, in v. 2. 67, she says, "I have con- 
versed with a magician, most profound in his art, and yet not 
damnable;" a few lines lower she repeats the caution: "By my 
life I do ; which I tender dearly, though I am a magician." It is 
natural to see in this repetition a reference to the statute of 1603, 
which attached the severest penalties to witchcraft. If these 
references are not imaginary, they cannot have stood in the play of 
1600. They must have been added at some later performance by 
way of "topical illusions." But even this supposition is not neces- 
sary. The first of these passages may refer to some earlier inhibi- 
tion — perhaps alluded to in 1. 2. 95 (see note ad loc.) ; and the 
statute against witchcraft only reenacted with increased severity 
an older statute of 5 Elizabeth. 

As to why As You Like It was "stayed" in 1600, no convincing 
explanation has yet been given. On the strength of various incon- 
sistencies in the first act and the hasty wind-up of the last, Mr. 
Wright suggests that the play was unfinished. But even if these 
facts are admitted, 1 they prove not merely that it was unfinished by 
August 4th, 1600 (in which case we should have expected a Quarto 
to appear in a month or two), but that it never received Shakespeare's 
last touches at all. Moreover, the citation from Morley shows that 
the fifth act was written in that year. 

It is more probable that a piratical attempt had been made to 
publish the play, and that Shakespeare or his company appealed 
against it. As You Like It was then new to the boards, and a 
printed edition might interfere with its stage success. An extraor- 
dinary number of Shakespeare's plays were printed in 1600 ; from 
this time onward he seems to have become very chary of letting 
his manuscript into the printers' — or pirates' — hands. 

1 For a fuller discussion see Appendix B. 



INTRODUCTION ix 

In the case of As You Like It, the metrical evidence yields no 
definite conclusion as to date. This is due partly to want of facts, 
— only two-fifths of the play is in verse, — partly to the conflicting 
results of the various tests. 1 All that can be inferred from the metre 
is that the play falls between Romeo and Juliet and Troilus and Cres- 
sida. This latitude it shares with Twelfth Night, a play with which 
it has much in common. 

As You Like It is entered in the Stationers' Registers along 
with Henry V and Much Ado; and this juxtaposition admirably 
exhibits its place in the development of Shakespeare's art. With 
Henry V he finished his great series of English Histories; with 
Hamlet he plunged into the world of tragedy. In the "sunshine 
holiday" between, he wrote those three bright plays — Much Ado, 
As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. They form a group apart, with 
little of the merely verbal cleverness of his first style, and none of 
the afterglow that lights up The Winters Tale, yet full of unspoiled 
mirth and innocent affection. Only here and there — in the melan- 
choly of Jaques and the almost too tragic plot of Much Ado — are 
Hamlet and Othello foreshadowed. An excess of symmetry is a 
trait that As You Like It shares with an earlier group ; but this is 
due to Lodge rather than to Shakespeare. 

3. SOURCES OF THE PLOT 

The earliest form of the story is found in the Tale of Gamelyn, 
sometimes (though wrongly) printed among Chaucer's Canterbury 
Tales. Whether Shakespeare had read it is more than doubtful. 2 
In any case, the immediate source of his plot was not the Tale, but 
Thomas Lodge's novel of Rosalind, Euphues' Golden Legacy. Lodge's 
story, first published in 1590, is based to some extent on the Tale. 
From it he took the characters of the old knight, his three sons, and 
the faithful servant Adam ; also the incidents of the quarrel in the 
orchard, the wrestling, and the hero's return and flight. On this 
simple foundation he erected a pastoral romance. He added the 
two Dukes (they are Kings in the novel), and their daughters; 
all the pastoral characters ; and all the interest of love and intrigue 
in Arden — all the main incidents of the play, in short, and all the 
main characters except Jaques, Touchstone, and Audrey. More- 

1 On these tests, see Appendix C. 

2 See Appendix A. In that Appendix and this part of the Introduction 
much is borrowed from Mr. Stone's article (New Shakspere Society's Trans- 
actions, 1880-86, p. 277), and more from Delius (Jahrbuch, vol. vi, p. 226). 



x INTRODUCTION 

over, he redacted the rough ballad-style of the Tale into a new and 
artificial manner. The novel, as its subtitle shows, was written in 
the fashion set by Lyly's Ewphues (1579), and thence called Euphu- 
ism. It is a style abounding in lengthy homilies, remote fancies, 
similes from natural history, alliterations and antitheses which 
sometimes fall to the level of very poor puns, a style described by 
Drayton as 

"Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies, 
Playing with words and idle similes;'' 

and best known from Shakespeare's famous caricature of it in Love's 
Labour's Lost, and Scott's in The Monastery. 

When Shakespeare dramatized the work of a fellow-country- 
man and a contemporary, he seems to have imposed certain restric- 
tions on himself which he did not observe when he drew his material 
from foreign sources. In the latter case he allowed himself great 
liberties, altering, omitting, and even (as in The Merchant of Venice) 
combining separate stories as suited his purpose. But in the case of 
As You Like It and The Winter's Tale, which is similarly drawn from 
Greene's Pandosto, he was dealing with a story familiar to many of 
his audience in its printed form. 1 Accordingly he was content to 
leave the main features of the story unchanged, to omit only such 
incidents as resisted dramatizing, and to add only such characters 
and situations as did not interfere with the known flow of the narra- 
tive. But under cover of this superficial resemblance he wrought 
a hundred subtle changes. The facts are retained, but their con- 
nection is altered, and with their connection their significance. The 
external features of the characters remain, but their acts are attrib- 
uted to new motives and take on new meaning. And over all 
he throws the splendor of style. The flat and conventional figures 
of the novel develop into full and human characters, and, though 
isolated phrases are retained, the academic dialogue is in the main 
replaced by the most brilliant speech. 

Only the more obvious, changes 2 can be noticed here, and 
these may be classed under three heads : (1) changes of time and 
place ; (2) omissions and additions ; (3) changes affecting character. 

In the novel Rosader and Adam set out for the forest of Arden ; 

1 Lodge's novel was then in its third edition. 

2 Minuter changes are referred to in the notes. The differences of names 
are these : Rosader = Orlando ; Saladin = Oliver ; Torismond = Duke 
Frederick ; Gerismond = Duke Senior ; Alinda = Celia ; Corydon = Corin ; 
Montanus = Silvius. Rosalind, Phebe, and Adam are retained, as well as 
the assumed names Ganymede and Aliena. 



INTRODUCTION xi 

in the play they have no special destination in view. Otherwise 
there is no change, except that Lodge is naturally more precise and 
prosaic in his topography. 

The play compresses into a few days — Daniel counts ten days 
with intervals — what in the novel is spread over a much longer 
period. 

(a) In Lodge there is a long interval between the quarrel (i. 1) 
and the wrestling (i. 2) ; Shakespeare puts them on successive days. 

(b) After the wrestling Rosader stays at home a while, and that 
too though he knows of Rosalind's banishment. Orlando would 
not be such a laggard in love. He returns at once, learns Oliver's 
plot, and leaves the place immediately, in ignorance of Rosalind's 
fate. 

(c) In spite of this, Shakespeare has followed Lodge in putting 
Oliver's banishment after the arrival of the fugitives in Arden. But 
this order of events is a concession to dramatic effect (iii. 1). 

(d) For the same reason, he has introduced the pastoral subplot 
before the arrival of Oliver in the forest, and has inverted the order 
of the messages brought to the ladies by him and by Silvius (iii. 5 
and iv. 3). 

There is one point, however, in his treatment of time, that needs 
a fuller notice. The most perfect arrangement from the spectator's 
point of view, and the one that will most easily sustain the dramatic 
illusion, is that the time supposed to elapse (the ideal time) shall 
be no more than the time that the play takes to act (the real time). 
A typical Greek tragedy, like the CEdipus Tyr annus, comes near 
fulfilling this condition. But such a congeries of dramatic moments 
is rare, and is unsuited for that development, as opposed to the mere 
presentment, of character which is the peculiar feature of Shake- 
spearean tragedy. Shakespeare "cuts the knot" by using 4wo 
different time-systems at once. By one series of time-notes the action 
is hurried on, as if it were compressed into a few days ; by another 
it is protracted over weeks or months. This phenomenon is not very 
noticeable in As You Like It; but it is there. Compare these three 
passages : 

(1) Oli. Good Monsieur Charles, what's the new news at the new 
court? 
Cha. There's nd news at the court, sir, but the old news : that 
is, the old duke is banished, etc. 

Oli. Where will the old duke live? 

Cha. They say he is already in the forest of Arden. 

(i. 1. 101-120.) 



xii INTRODUCTION 

(2) Duke F. Ay, Celia, we stay'd her for your sake, 

Else had she with her father ranged along. 
Cel. I did not then entreat to have her stay ; 

It was your pleasure and your own remorse : 

I was too young that time to value her (i. 3. 69-73). 

(3) Duke S. Hath not old custom made this life more sweet 

Than that of painted pomp ? . . . 
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, 
The seasons' difference, etc. (ii. 1. 2-7). 

In the first of these passages the impression conveyed, and meant 
to be conveyed, is that the usurpation is quite recent. This impres- 
sion is created to account for the unsettled state of Duke Frederick's 
feelings, and the causeless fit of passion in which he banishes Rosa- 
lind. But once this is accomplished, Shakespeare allows the usur- 
pation to slip back into the past, in order that, when the action shifts 
to Arden, the exiles may figure as habitues of the forest, fit to 
support the contrast between the country and the court. 

The more important omissions and additions which may be noted 
in Shakespeare's version of the story are the following : 

(a) The novel opens at the old knight's deathbed. Shakespeare 
gives all that is necessary to understand the story in Orlando's 
opening speech. 

(b) He also omits as not essential a tournament which precedes 
the wrestling. 

(c) After the wrestling, Rosader returns home with a rabble of 
young men, breaks into Saladin's house and feasts his gay com- 
panions. After a time he is seized in his sleep and put in irons, 
from which he is released by Adam, and holds the house till the 
sheriff comes against him. This episode is closely imitated from the 
Tale of Gamelyn. In the play Orlando returns alone, and is simply 
warned by Adam. 

(d) Saladin is thrown into prison by Torismond — a detail that 
Shakespeare omits in order to expedite the action. 

(e) In the novel Aliena is carried off by a band of robbers, from 
whom she is rescued by Rosader and Saladin. In this exploit 
Rosader receives a wound; in the play Orlando is wounded in 
rescuing his brother ; and the meeting of Oliver and Celia, which is 
the object of this episode, is effected simply by making Oliver the 
messenger. Robbers would be out of place in the philosophic shades 
of Arden. 

(j) At the end of the novel news comes that the twelve peers of 
France have revolted against the usurper; Gerismond sets out to 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

join them with Rosader and Saladin ; Torismond is defeated and 
slain. To end the play lightly, without breaking up the harmony 
of the wedding scene, Shakespeare has done poetic justice by the 
milder method of converting Frederick. 

Various incidents, for various dramatic reasons, are narrated 
instead of being represented, e.g. the wrestling with the Franklin's 
sons, the rescue of Oliver, the wooing of Celia, and Frederick's con- 
version. [See notes.] 

The purely reflective part of Jaques, and the purely comic parts 
of Touchstone, Audrey, and William, are additions of Shakespeare's 
own. They are so contrived that, without breaking in on the main 
action, they lend its humor breadth and depth, and help beyond 
anything else to turn the pastoral into a comedy. Several minor 
characters are also added or named for the first time by Shakespeare 
viz. Dennis, Le Beau, Amiens, the First Lord, and Sir Oliver Martext. 
The short lyrical scenes (ii. 5, iv. 2, v. 3) are also new, as indeed 
are all the songs. 

Besides these new characters, and the situations in which they 
figure, Shakespeare has added a number of scenes or parts of scenes 
to which no counterpart will be found in the novel : e.g. Act i, sc. 1 
up to Oliver's entrance, Act i, sc. 2 to the beginning of the wrest- 
ling, Act i, sc. 3 to the entrance of the Duke, and the whole of Act ii, 
sc. 1. These scenes are added to exhibit not merely the external 
circumstances of the various characters, but also their feelings 
and motives at the time when they are merged in the action. 

It is naturally in the treatment of character that Shakespeare 
has allowed himself most liberty. He has absolutely transmuted 
the hero and the heroine, with what a gain of dignity and manli- 
ness to Orlando, and of womanliness and wit to Rosalind, only a de- 
tailed comparison, such as is partly attempted in the notes, can 
show. But in two cases his treatment is so characteristic, and 
has provoked so much criticism, that the question must be 
summed up here. The characters in question are Oliver and 
Duke Frederick. 

At first sight there is little to choose between them and the Sala- 
din and Torismond of the novel. Yet with a minimum of change 
Shakespeare has given a new interpretation of their conduct. Sala- 
din's enmity to Rosader is due to pure greed and envy. Rosader has 
inherited the largest share of their father's estate, and to gain this 
Saladin plots his murder in cold blood, bribes the wrestler to kill 
him, and sends him to meet his fate on the plea that he must support 
the honor of the house. Torismond is a companion figure, in drawing 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

whom Lodge seems to have had in his mind the conventional pic- 
tures of the Greek Tyrannus. He is first introduced while holding 
a tournament, intended to divert the people's thoughts from dwell- 
ing on their banished king. He banishes Rosalind for fear that one 
of the peers may fall in love with her and aspire to the throne. 
When his own daughter intercedes, he banishes her as well, " rather 
choosing," says Lodge, "to hazard the loss of his only child than 
anyways to put in question the state of his kingdom." Finally, 
when he hears of Rosader's flight, "desirous to possess such fair 
revenues," he seizes on the pretext to confiscate Saladin's property. 
"By thy means," he says, "have I lost a most brave and resolute 
chevalier." 

Oliver's hatred for Orlando has its root, not in greed — for Or- 
lando has no wealth to covet — but in a far subtler cause, a blood 
diverted from the course of nature. He sees this boy, whom he has 
neglected as an encumbrance, growing up in spite of him to 
outshine him even in the eyes of his own dependents. He cannot 
deny Orlando's graces even to himself, but he will not own that he is 
in the wrong. His plot with Charles is concocted in the heat of 
resentment, and, when this redounds to Orlando's glory, his final 
treacherous attempt is the last effort of a baffled will. 

The Duke's actions, too, are based on temperament rather than 
on circumstance. He is twice expressly styled the "humorous". 
Duke. He is at the mercy of his own moody passions. It is in a 
fit of temper, provoked by the sight of his old enemy's son, that he 
banishes Rosalind. When he finds that Celia too has fled, he has 
a touch of repentance, succeeded by another access of violence in 
which he banishes Oliver. His final conversion is quite in keeping 
with his previous acts. 

The meeting of the two "tyrants," in which this part of the plot 
culminates, is brought about by new means which connect it directly 
with the main plot. Celia is not banished : she runs away ; Orlando 
is suspected — here the time change noted above comes in — and 
Oliver is sent for. With a fine poetic justice, the perverse willful- 
ness of Oliver is broken by a tyranny still more masterful, and all 
his fortunes are made to depend on his recovery of that brother 
whom he had driven from house and home. 

If it be felt after all that Oliver hardly deserves his final good 
fortune, that there is little in his previous conduct to prepare us for 
his conversion, we can only recur to the conditions under which 
Shakespeare was working, and reply that he has probably done his 
best with the materials at hand. 



INTRODUCTION xv 

4. CRITICAL APPRECIATION 

So far we have followed the process of creation; it remains 
to look at the product as an artistic whole. As such it must be 
judged on its own merits, without regard to its origin, and in its 
entirety. The separate characters are nothing except as parts of 
the play, and have no value except in their places there. No doubt 
there is an interest of character as well as an interest of situation, 
but in drama, at least, the two cannot be dissociated. Moreover, 
the various characters and situations are not all on the same level 
of interest, and a true judgment on the whole will emerge only when 
they are seen in their right relations. Here criticism must reverse 
the method of creation and separate the different strands that the 
poet has woven together. < 

/ Every true plot, however short, is made up of two move- 
ments — a movement of complication and a movement of resolution. 
These two movements may vary in relative length, but in a well- 
constructed play they often fairly divide the action, and the point 
at which the complication ends and the resolution begins may be 
called the dramatic climax. In As You Like It this climax will be 
found in the second scene of the third act, i.e. as nearly as possible 
in the mathematical center of the play. 

This is the famous forest scene, where Rosalind in the guise of a 
youth meets Orlando, and proposes that he shall woo her in mas- 
querade. This scene is the key to the whole action of the play : 
to this all the previous movements lead up, and from this all the sub- 
sequent movements flow. The first hint of it is, found in Lodge, 
in the Wooing Eclogue sung by Ganymede and Rosader. But it 
remained for Shakespeare to see the dramatic possibilities of the 
situation. The Wooing Eclogue is jejune compared with the inter- 
play of jest and earnest, of wit and tenderness, which forms the tex- 
ture of the forest scene ; and even in form it is too purely a frolic 
to foster that real ripening of affection which Shakespeare makes us 
see beneath the frolic. 

It is from this point that we can most profitably analyze 
the structure of the play. / Here is the simple and essential plot. 
Two undeclared lovers meet; the lady in disguise challenges her 
lover to woo her as his mistress; their courtship is thus carried on in 
masquerade till she is assured of his affection, when she discloses 
herself, and all ends happily. This issue is predetermined almost 
from the first, so that our attention is directed less to what will 
happen than to the way in which the theme will work itself out. 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

Hence the play is in form a comedy of dialogue rather than a comedy 
of incident. But the real interest lies neither in dialogue nor in inci- 
dent. The incidents are contrived to bring the lovers together; 
the dialogue is not a mere run of repartee beginning and ending in 
a laugh, but is devoted to the expression of the main theme. And 
that theme is love. As You Like It is the comedy of happy love, 
as Romeo and Juliet is the tragedy of star-crossed love. 

The hero, indeed, is little more than the ideal lover — the success- 
ful lover, that is, for he is not burdened with that weight of passion 
which in itself foredooms Romeo. Shakespeare has bestowed on 
Orlando all the solid graces of his part. He is young, manly, gentle, 
and unfortunate; and perhaps his misfortunes tell as much in his 
favor as his manliness, or gentleness, or youth. When his luck turns 
we begin to feel his deficiencies./' In the forest scenes he is little but 
a passive interlocutor, and the burden of the dialogue falls on Rosa- 
lind. Shakespeare has given him the victory over Jaques, but his 
wit is rather of the tu quoque order : " Farewell, good Signior Love : " 
"Adieu, good Monsieur Melancholy" — a schoolboy style of retort. 
If the lover in luck fails to hold our interest, it is perhaps the penalty 
inseparable from his age and his part, a part in which Scott has 
owned to frequent failure, and even Shakespeare has not always 
succeeded. ) 

But his partial failure with the hero only brings out the more 
fully his consummate success with the heroine. She is a good 
example of the truth that character and situation cannot be disso- 
ciated. Rosalind is created for the situation and the situation 
for Rosalind. "She is wit and womanliness," as Mr. Verity says, 
"in equal proportions;" and it is precisely this combination that 
makes her Rosalind. Beatrice is as witty and Imogene more 
womanly, but nowhere else in the range of Shakespeare's women are 
the two qualities so brought together that love stimulates wit and 
wit lends itself to love. Her full character and powers are not dis- 
closed at once : in the earlier scenes, her repartees are not percep- 
tibly above the level of Celia or the Clown ; it is not till she is 
safe in the forest, and learns that Orlando is near and loves her, 
that fancy catches fire from feeling and rises in brilliant coruscation. 
This is the peculiar quality of her wit. It is neither boisterous nor 
personal. She does not "speak poinards," like Beatrice, but deals in 
bright generalities "that give delight and hurt not." When she 
wishes to wound it is not irony that she uses. Her gayety is the 
flower of youth and of a brave and high spirit, a part of her inheri- 
tance of noble birth which sustains her in adversity and is never 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

forgotten in her masquerade. Shakespeare has disdained for her 
sake the obvious farcical opportunities that the situation offers, 
some of which he has worked out in Twelfth Night. But the charm 
of Viola is of a dependent kind, to which a little ridicule is not fatal. 
It may be thought that Rosalind keeps Orlando too long in suspense ; 
but it must be remembered that until their second meeting there has 
been no word of love between them, that she has to assure herself 
of his feelings and her own, and that the wooing is a real wooing to 
her — in short, the situation has charms of its own which no witty 
woman could forego. 

To this simple theme everything else is accessory. Some 
of the accessories are needed to explain how the lovers first come to 
fall in love, and how they meet again in new scenes and amid new 
circumstances ; others describe these scenes and circumstances, the 
natural and social milieu of the action; still others serve to 
strengthen the main plot by way of comparison or to bring into 
relief by force of contrast. According as they fulfill one or another 
of these functions, they may be distinguished as (a) preliminaries, 
(b) background scenes, and (c) subplots. 

Some of the preliminaries fall outside the actual play, being pre- 
supposed in the conditions in which the action opens. In treating 
these presuppositions, story-tellers have always allowed themselves 
more freedom than in the actual conduct of the tale. The Greek 
tragedians were notoriously careless of probability in rot e£w rod dpd- 
naros, things outside the action ; and, to take a modern instance, 
it would need another Egoist to explain how Clara Middleton be- 
comes engaged to Sir Willoughby. In our play it may be observed 
that Shakespeare gives no reason for the peculiar terms of Sir Row- 
land's will, on which so much depends ; nor does he anywhere ex- 
plain for which of his virtues the people allowed their amiable Duke 
to be banished by his "humorous" brother. These things are 
e£w rod dpdfxaros. 

The preliminary scenes within the play are those parts of it which 
lead up to the wrestling at which the lovers meet, explain the ground 
of their sudden attachment, and give the cause of their banishment 
and flight. Oliver and Duke Frederick are essentially preliminary 
characters, though Oliver reappears in one of the subplots. The fate 
of each is itself a play in miniature, with its proper complication and 
resolution. In both there is the same motive of fraternal enmity 
(Shakespeare loves thus to heighten an effect by reduplication), 
and the two denouements are not dissimilar. Adam also belongs 
to the preliminaries, and drops out of the action at the end of Act ii. 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

To the background belong all those scenes and characters 
that contribute nothing to the action of the play. These scenes are 
descriptive rather than properly dramatic, and the import of the 
characters lies less in what they do than in what they say. They 
give the natural and social surroundings in which the main action 
moves, and impart to it the breadth and atmosphere of life. The 
natural surroundings are suggested in a series of brief touches which 
yet leave a complete picture in the mind ; and their spirit has passed 
into the quiet wisdom of the Elder Duke, and finds tuneful expres- 
sion in the songs of Amiens and the foresters. These songs are a 
notable feature of the play. The forest would be dead without 
them. They are all "old and plain" — no luscious madrigals or 
quaint eclogues such as Lodge delights in, but songs of the green- 
wood and the holly, of the chase and country love. The themes are 
all the better for being old-fashioned ; they awake echoes of Robin 
Hood, and their music and associations help not a little to convey 
that open-air feeling which pervades the play, and which cannot 
always be imparted by mere description. Here the sylvan predomi- 
nates over the pastoral ; we are in Sherwood, not Arcadia. 

The banished Duke belongs essentially to the background. Posi- 
tive function he has none, except to give away the bride. But his 
tone and temper make him an excellent mouthpiece of the moral 
advantages of banishment. His cheerful reflections bring out the 
optimistic side of that contrast between the country and the court, 
the natural and the artificial, which is implied throughout the play, 
and which gives point to the invectives of Jaques and to the humor 
of Touchstone. The character and circumstances of this exiled 
moralist inevitably suggests a comparison with Prospero that he is 
ill fitted to sustain. The adversity which he has tasted is merely 
material ; the iron of ingratitude has not entered into his soul. It 
is remarkable that he nowhere alludes to his brother's conduct or 
to the occasion of his own banishment. And apart from this moral 
difference, he has not the high speculative outlook of Prospero. But 
this only proves that his reflections are in keeping with the general 
tone of the play, which, delightful as it is, does not touch any deep 
moral problem, but dwells lightly on the surface of life. 

Jaques is by far the most important of all the background char- 
acters. He answers to that description fairly, but he does absolutely 
nothing to forward the action of the play. "He is the only purely 
contemplative character in Shakespeare," says Hazlitt ; "he thinks 
and does nothing." But though he does nothing to advance the 
plot, his removal would entirely alter the composition of the whole. 



INTRODUCTION xix 

He is a foil to half the other characters — to the Duke in his melan- 
choly, to the lovers in his philosophy, and to Touchstone in his 
humor. 

In a sense, it is true, the character of Jaques is a satire on a con- 
temporary affectation. 1 He represents the traveled Englishman, 
who has come back from the Continent with a soured temper and an 
empty purse. But Shakespeare, when he wrote As You Like It, 
had long outgrown the mere satirist of Love's Labours Lost. He 
uses contemporary allusions only to deck some general trait. In 
Jaques' case the trait is certainly one that has clung, traditionally at 
least, to the national character. But there is more in it. 

Jaques is a noncombatant in the battle of life. He has tasted 
pleasure in his youth, he has spent his patrimony in foreign travel, 
and has now retired on his experience. His sole occupation is 
to watch the combat he has quitted. Seen from the outside, life 
is to him a mere dramatic spectacle. Perhaps his point of view is 
not the best, for he finds more to cry than to laugh over. He sees 
life in its mean, ludicrous, and pathetic aspects ; and, indeed, is so 
much in love with his r6le of spectator, that all the actors must 
seem to him by comparison mean, ludicrous, or pathetic. And thus 
he is set off against the Duke, the lovers, and the fool. Lying under 
the trees, weeping over the wounded deer, and sucking melancholy 
from the songs of Amiens, he brings out (in contrast to the Duke) 
a new variation on the theme of the country and the court. He has 
followed the Duke's fortunes, and calls himself a fool for his pains. 
For here, in the forest, where the Duke finds the sweet and bracing 
influences of Nature, Jaques sees the struggle of the life repeating 
itself in folly, selfishness, and misery. 

He is sufficiently interested in the lovers to want to convert 
them to his way of thinking. But they have no time for such vani- 
ties, and flout him somewhat rudely off the stage. 

It is a holiday for him when he finds the fool. Touchstone's 
mock wisdom is a new and exquisite experience. Jaques has found 
his vocation. He will don motley and reform the world with words. 
He follows Touchstone about, listening to him from behind the trees, 
and showing off his paces to the Duke with the patronizing admira- 
tion of the amateur for the professional. 

At last, when the old Duke is restored, he goes to seek out the 

1 For a similar affectation compare King John, iv. 1. 13: 
"Yet I remember, when I was in France, 
Young gentlemen would be as sad as night, 
Only for wantonness." 



xx INTRODUCTION 

penitent usurper in his cell, there to continue his study of human 
nature. He is essentially a creature of idleness, and with the re- 
turn to active life his function ends. The whole scope and purpose 
of this character is much in dispute, and we must try to judge him 
solely by what he says, and what the others say of and to him. 
In fine, it is a mistake to take him more seriously than he takes him- 
self. 

All these background scenes and characters are done with an 
elaborateness that amounts almost to a fault. It is a fault — and 
one into which Scott, for instance, has often fallen — to make those 
persons first in interest who are only second in the action; and 
though such an error may readily be pardoned in a novel, it is not 
so easy to forgive in a play, where the main action is after all the 
main thing. If As You Like It escapes this charge, it is due to the 
paramount personality and charm of Rosalind. 

The main action is further strengthened by no less than 
three subplots, by the introduction of which Shakespeare avails 
himself of the principles of comparison and contrast. The loves 
of Oliver and Celia run parallel to those of Orlando and Rosalind ; 
but enough has been said about Oliver in an earlier section. As 
Celia's chief function is to set off Rosalind, so her main charm lies 
just here, in her loyal and admiring love for her cousin, taller, wittier, 
and more beautiful than herself. It is an intimate and sisterly 
affection above any other of the kind depicted by Shakespeare, and 
it enhances her as much as it does Rosalind. But there is never 
any doubt as to the real heroine. Celia's humor — and she has 
plenty of fun, though it has not the sparkle and range of 
Rosalind's — comes out only when they are alone together, and plays 
in affectionate banter about her cousin. There is some truth in 
what she says, that the love she gives is more perfect than that 
which she receives ; but such is the birthright of heroines. 

Ganymede and Aliena only play at shepherds. It is chiefly in the 
subplot of Silvius and Phebe, and in the small part of Corin, 
that Shakespeare has utilized the pastoral element in his original. 
The taste for pastoralism had revived in Spain and Italy in the 
middle of the sixteenth century and had gradually spread to Eng- 
land, where it strongly affected the work of some of Shakespeare's 
predecessors, such as Spenser, Sidney, and Lodge. In certain eras 
— the Alexandrian, the Augustan, the Elizabethan, and our own — 
these Arcadian fancies have been a spell on quiet imaginations that 
find the times out of joint. But the pastoral world, with its classi- 
cal machinery and conventional subjects, is too unreal for the pur- 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

pose of comedy, and when it is made to support the main weight 
of the plot it is prone to degenerate, as it did in Fletcher's hands, 
into sentimentalism. Shakespeare seems instinctively to have 
hit its proper place in comedy. He uses it, much as he uses the fairy 
world in A Midsummer Night's Dream, as subsidiary to the natural 
human interest of his main action. The characters here are 
sketched in a light and conventional manner. Silvius is merely the 
lovesick swain, Phebe the country belle. Corin belongs to a some- 
what different world, the world of the Shepherd's Calendar rather 
than that of the Arcadia. He is a real shepherd, Shakespeare's 
compliment to honest labor. 

In the handling of these secondary personages, it is admirable 
to observe with what boldness Shakespeare has blended different 
manners of art, and even different planes of reality, passing from 
sentiment to comedy, and from comedy to farce. But he is careful 
to keep the extremes apart. An encounter between Silvius and 
Touchstone would make either the one ridiculous or the other offen- 
sive. 

In an Elizabethan comedy there are regularly one or two char- 
acters whose chief function — whatever else they may incidentally 
do — is to raise a laugh. The taste of the audience demanded it, 
and Shakespeare acquiesced. The stuff of which these parts are 
made is at bottom the same everywhere ; the point for criticism to 
observe is how Shakespeare makes a virtue of this necessity, how he 
gives to each of his clowns or fools the touch that individualizes them 
and tones them into harmony with the play of which they form a 
part. In the earlier comedies these parts are usually assigned 
to clownish servants, such as Launce and Speed in The Two Gentle- 
men of Verona, or Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice. It 
was a happy innovation to make the clown of As You Like It a pro- 
fessional jester. In the earlier scenes his wit is perhaps too strictly 
professional ; some of his jokes have a very ancient tang. But when 
this excrescence of an artificial society is transplanted by his own 
good nature to the forest, he blooms into an incongruous epitome 
of all the contrasts of the play. Wisdom is a matter of comparison, 
and the fool is a philosopher in the fields. His solemn moralizings 
on life and time are an admirable burlesque of Jaques, all the more 
exquisite because Jaques does not see it. But it is naturally on the 
two serious themes of the play that his wit is chiefly exercised. On 
the subject of love he encounters Rosalind, with his sympathetic 
reminiscences of courting days and his gross parody of Orlando's 
poem. But Rosalind's affection is far too robust and natural to 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

take any harm from mockery. "Peace, you dull fool !" she says, 
and Touchstone discreetly retires, in good order, if not with the 
honors of war. 

On the oft-quoted antithesis between the country and the court, 
he sums up to Corin with a nicety that leaves not a straw to choose 
between them. His marriage with Audrey is his happiest effort, 
and his last word on both subjects. For an ex-courtier to marry an 
arrant rustic is the feat of a practical philosopher, and a fair retort 
on Rosalind. She has made wit the vassal of love; Touchstone 
forces love itself into the service of wit. 

Like all the plays of Shakespeare's middle period, As You 
Like It possesses the charm of lucidity. It is free from the verbal 
extravagances that he affected earlier ; and the thought is nowhere 
really hard. Beyond this, we can say only that the verse is excellent 
of its kind. It is not a kind, however, that admits of the highest 
excellence. The lines are not surcharged with feeling, or eloquence, 
or imagination. They are intrusted with the sentiment, the reflec- 
tion, and not a little of the action of the piece. But the sentiment 
is not very passionate, nor the reflection very profound, and the 
verse is correspondingly deficient in the supreme qualities of har- 
mony. Oliver's narrative to the ladies has vivid descriptive touches ; 
the speeches of Jaques and the Duke are famous specimens of dec- 
lamation. Sweeter are the lines given to Silvius; but perhaps 
the finest versification m the play is Orlando's speech when he 
comes upon the banqueters : 

"But whoe'er you are 
That in this desert inaccessible, 
Under the shade of melancholy boughs, 
Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time, " etc. 

In point of style, as in point of structure, the main charm of the 
play must always lie in the brilliant prose scenes. The peculiar 
excellences of Shakespeare's middle style — clearness, brightness, 
and equivalence to the matter — are even more essential in prose 
than in verse, and in this group of tragedies and comedies, from 
The Merchant of Venice to Hamlet, his handling of prose is a stylistic 
achievement not inferior to his management of meters. So much 
has been done for prose since then, and so little for blank verse, 
that it is hard to realize that it is an achievement at all except by 
comparison with earlier styles. Such a comparison would demon- 
strate that for lucidity, point, and a certain easy speed it stands 
alone in the literature of that age. 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

As there is no separate Quarto, the First Folio forms the 
sole basis of the text. Whatever may be the general merits of the 
Second Folio (1632), it is not an independent authority in the case 
of As You Like It. In the present edition the Globe text has been 
followed. The few divergences are mostly of a conservative kind. 
But wherever the reading adopted differs in any important partic- 
ular from that of the First Folio, the difference has been recorded, 
with the name of the original corrector. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS 

Duke Living in banishment 

Frederick . . His brother, and usurper of his dominions 

1 . . . . Lords attending on the banished duke 
Jaques J 

Le Beau A courtier attending upon Frederick 

Charles Wrestler to Frederick 

Oliver ^> 

Jaques > Sons of Sir Rowland de Boys 

Orlando > 

\ Servants to Oliver 

Dennis J 

Touchstone A clown 

Sir Oliver Martext A vicar 

I Shepherds 

Silvius J 

William .... A country fellow, in love with Audrey 
A person representing Hymen 

Rosalind Daughter to the banished duke 

Celia, Daughter to Frederick 

Phebe A shepherdess 

Audrey A country wench 

Lords, Pages, and Attendants, etc. 

SCENE — Oliver's House; Duke Frederick's Court; 
and the Forest of Arden 



As You Like It 

ACT I 

Scene I — Orchard of Oliver's house 

Enter Orlando and Adam 

Orl. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this 
fashion bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand 
crowns, and, as thou sayest, charged my brother, 
on his blessing, to breed me well : and there begins 
my sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, 
and report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my 
part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak 
more properly, stays me here at home unkept ; for 
call you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, 10 
that differs not from the stalling of an ox ? His 
horses are bred better; for, besides that they are 
fair with their feeding, they are taught their man- 
age, and to that end riders dearly hired : but I, his 
brother, gain nothing under him but growth;? for 
the which his animals on his dunghills are as much 
bound to him as I. \ Besides this nothing that he so 
plentifully gives me, the something that nature 
gave me his countenance seems to take from me : 
he lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of 20 
a brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my 
gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, 
that grieves me ; and the spirit of my father, which 

l 



2 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this 
servitude : I will no longer endure it, though yet I 
know no wise remedy how to avoid it. 

Adam. Yonder comes my master, your brother. 

Orl. Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how 
he will shake me up. 30 

Enter Oliver 

Oli. Now, sir ! what make you here ? 

Orl. Nothing : I am not taught to make any- 
thing. 

Oli. What mar you then, sir ? 

Orl. Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that 
which God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, 
with idleness. 

Oli. Marry, sir, be better employed, and be 
naught awhile. 

Orl. Shall I keep your hogs and eat husks with 40 
them? What prodigal portion have I spent, that 
I should come to such penury ? 

Oli. Know you where you are, sir ? 

Orl. O, sir, very well : here in your orchard. 

Oli. Know you before whom, sir ? 

Orl. Ay, better than him I am before knows me. 
I know you are my eldest brother; and, in the 
gentle condition of blood, you should so know me. 
The courtesy of nations allows you my better, in 
that you are the first-born ; but the same tradition 50 
takes not away my blood, were there twenty 
brothers betwixt us : I have as much of my father 
in me as you ; albeit, I confess, your coming before 
me is nearer to his reverence. 



Scene One] AS YOU LIKE IT 3 

Oli. What, boy ! 

Orl. Come, come, elder brother, you are too 
young in this. 

Oli. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain ? 

Orl. I am no villain ; I am the youngest son of 
Sir Rowland de Boys ; he was my father, and he is 60 
thrice a villain that says such a father begot vil- 
lains. Wert thou not my brother, I would not 
take this hand from thy throat till this other had 
pulled out thy tongue for saying so : thou hast 
railed on thyself. 

Adam. Sweet masters, be patient : for your 
father's remembrance, be at accord. 

Oli. Let me go, I say. 

Orl. I will not, till I please : you shall hear me. 
My father charged you in his will to give me good 70 
education : you have trained me like a peasant, 
obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-like 
qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in 
me, and I will no longer endure it : therefore allow 
me such exercises as may become a gentleman, or 
give me the poor allottery my father left me by 
testament ; with that I will go buy my fortunes. 

Oli. And what wilt thou do ? beg, when that is 
spent ? Well, sir, get you in : I will not long be so 
troubled with you; you shall have some part of 
your will : I pray you, leave me. 

Orl. I will no further offend you than becomes 
me for my good. 

Oli. Get you with him, you old dog. 

Adam. Is " old dog" my reward ? Most true, I 
have lost my teeth in your service. God be with 



4 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

my old master ! he would not have spoke such a 
word. [Exeunt Orlando and Adam. 

Oli. Is it even so? begin you to grow upon 90 
me ? I will physic your rankness, and yet give no 
thousand crowns neither. Holla, Dennis ! 

Enter Dennis 

Den. Calls your worship ? 

Oli. Was not Charles, the duke's wrestler, here 
to speak with me ? 

Den. So please you, he is here at the door and 
importunes access to you. 

Oli. Call him in. [Exit Dennis.] 'Twill be a 
good way ; and to-morrow the wrestling is. 

Enter Charles 

Cha. Good morrow to your worship. 100 

Oli. Good Monsieur Charles, what's the new 
news at the new court ? 

Cha. There is no news at the court, sir, but the 
old news : that is, the old duke is banished by his 
younger brother the new duke; and three or four 
loving lords have put themselves into voluntary 
exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich 
the new duke ; therefore he gives them good leave 
to wander. 

Oli. Can you tell if Rosalind, the duke's daugh-no 
ter, be banished with her father ? 

Cha. O, no ; for the duke's daughter, her cousin, 
so loves her, being ever from their cradles bred 
together, that she would have followed her exile, or 
have died to stay behind her. She is at the court, 



Scene One] AS YOU LIKE IT 5 

and no less beloved of her uncle than his own 
daughter; and never two ladies loved as they 
do. 

Oli. Where will the old duke live ? 

Cha. They say he is already in the forest of 120 
Arden, and a many merry men with him ; and there 
they live like the old Robin Hood of England : they 
say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, 
and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the 
golden world. 

Oli. What, you wrestle to-morrow before the 
new duke? 

Cha. Marry, do I, sir ; and I came to acquaint 
you with a matter. I am given, sir, secretly to 
understand that your younger brother Orlando hath 130 
a disposition to come in disguised against me to try 
a fall. To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit; 
and he that escapes me without some broken limb 
shall acquit him well. Your brother is but young 
and tender ; and, for your love, I would be loath 
to foil him, as I must, for my own honour, if he 
come in : therefore, out of my love to you, I came 
hither to acquaint you withal, that either you 
might stay him from his intendment or brook such 
disgrace well as he shall run into, in that it is ai40 
thing of his own search and altogether against my 
will. 

Oli. Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, 
which thou shalt find I will most kindly requite. 
I had myself notice of my brother's purpose herein 
and have by underhand means laboured to dissuade 
him from it, but he is resolute. I'll tell thee, 



6 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

Charles : it is the stubbornest young fellow of 
France, full of ambition, an envious emulator of 
every man's good parts, a secret and villainous con- 150 
triver against me his natural brother : therefore use 
thy discretion; I had as lief thou didst break his 
neck as his finger. And thou wert best look to't ; 
for if thou dost him any slight disgrace or if he do 
not mightily grace himself on thee, he will practise 
against thee by poison, entrap thee by some 
treacherous device and never leave thee till he hath 
ta'en thy life by some indirect means or other ; for, 
I assure thee, and almost with tears I speak it, there 
is not one so young and so villainous this day living. 160 
I speak but brotherly of him ; but should I anato- 
mize him to thee as he is, I must blush and weep 
and thou must look pale and wonder. 

Cha. I am heartily glad I came hither to you. 
If he come to-morrow, I'll give him his payment : 
if ever he go alone again, I'll never wrestle for prize 
more : and so God keep your worship ! 

Oli. Farewell, good Charles. [Exit Charles.] 
Now will I stir this gamester : I hope I shall see an 
end of him ; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates 170 
nothing more than he. Yet he's gentle, never 
schooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of all 
sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so much in 
the heart of the world, and especially of my own 
people, who best know him, that I am altogether 
misprised : but it shall not be so long ; this wrestler 
shall clear all : nothing remains but that I 
kindle the boy thither; which now I'll go about. 

[Exit. 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 7 

Scene II — Lawn before the Duke's palace 
Enter Celia and Rosalind 

Cel. I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be 
merry. 

Ros. Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am 
mistress of; and would you yet I were merrier? 
Unless you could teach me to forget a banished 
father, you must not learn me how to remember 
any extraordinary pleasure. 

Cel. Herein I see thou lovest me not with the 
full weight that I love thee. If my uncle, thy 
banished father, had banished thy uncle, the duke 10 
my father, so thou hadst been still with me, I 
could have taught my love to take thy father for 
mine : so wouldst thou, if the truth of thy love to 
me were so righteously tempered as mine is to thee. 

Ros. Well, I will forget the condition of my 
estate, to rejoice in yours. 

Cel. You know my father hath no child but I, 
nor none is like to have : and, truly, when he dies, 
thou shalt be his heir, for what he hath taken 20 
away from thy father perforce, I will render thee 
again in affection; by mine honour, I will; and 
when I break that oath, let me turn monster : 
therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be 
merry. 

Ros. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise 
sports. Let me see ; what think you of falling in 
love ? 

Cel. Marry, I prithee, do, to make sport withal : 



8 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

but love no man in good earnest ; nor no further in 30 
sport neither than with safety of a pure blush thou 
may est in honour come off again. 

Ros. What shall be our sport, then ? 

Cel. Let us sit and mock the good housewife 
Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may hence- 
forth be bestowed equally. 

Ros. I would we could do so, for her benefits are 
mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman 
doth most mistake in her gifts to women. 

Cel. 'Tis true; for those that she makes fair 40 
she scarce makes honest, and those that she makes 
honest she makes very ill-favouredly. 

Ros. Nay, now thou goest from Fortune's office 
to Nature's : Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, 
not in the lineaments of Nature. 

Enter Touchstone 

Cel. No? when Nature hath made a fair 
creature, may she not by Fortune fall into the fire ? 
Though Nature hath given us wit to flout at For- 
tune, hath not Fortune sent in this fool to cut off 
the argument ? 50 

Ros. Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for 
Nature, when Fortune makes Nature's natural the 
cutter-off of Nature's wit. 

Cel. Peradventure this is not Fortune's work 
neither, but Nature's ; who perceiving our natural 
wits too dull to reason of such goddesses hath sent 
this natural for our whetstone ; for always the dul- 
ness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How 
now, wit ! whither wander you ? 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 9 

Touch. Mistress, you must come away to your 60 
father. 

Cel. Were you made the messenger ? 

Touch. No, by mine honour, but I was bid to 
come for you. 

Ros. Where learned you that oath, fool ? 

Touch. Of a certain knight that swore by his 
honour they were good pancakes and swore by his 
honour the mustard was naught : now I'll stand to 70 
it, the pancakes were naught and the mustard was 
good, and yet was not the knight forsworn. 

Cel. How prove you that, in the great heap of 
your knowledge ? 

Ros. Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom. 

Touch. Stand you both forth now : stroke your 
chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave. 

Cel. By our beards, if we had them, thou art. 

Touch. By my knavery, if I had it, then I were ; so 
but if you swear by that that is not, you are not 
forsworn : no more was this knight, swearing by 
his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, 
he had sworn it away before ever he saw those 
pancakes or that mustard. 

Cel. Prithee, who is 't that thou meanest ? 

Touch. One that old Frederick, your father, 
loves. 

Cel. My father's love is enough to honour him 
enough : speak no more of him ; you'll be whipped 90 
for taxation one of these days. 

Touch. The more pity, that fools may not speak 
wisely what wise men do foolishly. 

Cel. By my troth, thou sayest true ; for since 



10 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little 
foolery that wise men have makes a great show. 
Here comes Monsieur Le Beau. 

Ros. With his mouth full of news. 

Cel. Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed 
their young. 100 

Ros. Then shall we be news-crammed. 

Cel. All the better; we shall be the more 

marketable. 

Enter Le Beau 

Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau : what's the news ? 

Le Beau. Fair princess, you have lost much good 
sport. 

Cel. Sport ! of what colour ? 

Le Beau. What colour, madam ! how shall I 
answer you? 

Ros. As wit and fortune will. no 

Touch. Or as the Destinies decree. 

Cel. Well said : that was laid on with a trowel. 

Touch. Nay, if I keep not my rank, — 

Ros. Thou losest thy old smell. 

Le Beau. You amaze me, ladies : I would have 
told you of good wrestling, which you have lost 
the sight of. 

Ros. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling. 

Le Beau. I will tell you the beginning; and if 
it please your ladyships, you may see the end ; for 120 
the best is yet to do ; and here, where you are, they 
are coming to perform it. 

Cel. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried. 

Le Beau. There comes an old man and his three 
sons, — 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 11 

Cel. I could match this beginning with an old 
tale. 

Le Beau. Three proper young men, of excellent 
growth and presence. 130 

Ros. With bills on their necks, " Be it known 
unto all men by these presents." 

Le Beau. The eldest of the three wrestled with 
Charles, the duke's wrestler; which Charles in a 
moment threw him and broke three of his ribs, 
that there is little hope of life in him : so he served 
the second, and so the third. Yonder they lie ; the 
poor old man, their father, making such pitiful dole 
over them that all the beholders take his part with 
weeping. 140 

Ros. Alas ! 

Touch. But what is the sport, monsieur, that 
the ladies have lost? 

Le Beau. Why, this that I speak of. 

Touch. Thus men may grow wiser every day : 
it is the first time that ever I heard breaking of 
ribs was sport for ladies. 

Cel. Or I, I promise thee. 

Ros. But is there any else longs to see this 
broken music in his sides? is there yet another 150 
dotes upon rib-breaking? Shall we see this 
wrestling, cousin? 

Le Beau. You must, if you stay here ; for here 
is the place appointed for the wrestling, and they 
are ready to perform it. 

Cel. Yonder, sure, they are coming: let us 
now stay and see it. 



n AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

Flourish. Enter Duke Frederick, Lords, Orlando, 
Charles, and Attendants 

Duke F. Come on : since the youth will not be 
entreated, his own peril on his forwardness. 

Ros. Is yonder the man ? 160 

Le Beau. Even he, madam. 

Cel. Alas, he is too young ! yet he looks suc- 
cessfully. 

Duke F. How now, daughter and cousin ! are 
you crept hither to see the wrestling ? 

Ros. Ay, my liege, so please you give us leave. 

Duke F. You will take little delight in it, I can 
tell you; there is such odds in the man. In pity 
of the challenger's youth I would fain dissuade him, 170 
but he will not be entreated. Speak to him, ladies ; 
see if you can move him. 

Cel. Call him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau. 

Duke F. Do so : I'll not be by. 

Le Beau. Monsieur the challenger, the princess' 
call for you. 

Orl. I attend them with all respect and duty. 

Ros. Young man, have you challenged Charles 
the wrestler? 

Orl. No, fair princess ; he is the general chal- iso 
lenger : I come but in, as others do, to try with 
him the strength of my youth. 

Cel. Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold 
for your years. You have seen cruel proof of this 
man's strength : if you saw yourself with your eyes 
or knew yourself with your judgement, the fear of 
your adventure would counsel you to a more equal 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 13 

enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to em- • 
brace your own safety and give over this attempt. 190 

Ros. Do, young sir ; your reputation shall not 
therefore be misprised; we will make it our suit 
to the duke that the wrestling might not go forward. 

Orl. I beseech you, punish me not with your 
hard thoughts, wherein I confess me much guilty, 
to deny so fair and excellent ladies any thing. But 
let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to 
my trial : wherein if I be foiled, there is but one 
shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but 200 
one dead that is willing to be so : I shall do my 
friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me, the 
world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in 
the world I fill up a place, which may be better 
supplied when I have made it empty. 

Ros. The little strength that I have, I would it 
were with you. 

Cel. And mine, to eke out hers. 

Ros. Fare you well : pray heaven I be deceived 
in you ! 210 

Cel. Your heart's desires be with you ! 

Cha. Come, where is this young gallant that is 
so desirous to lie with his mother earth ? 

Orl. Ready, sir ; but his will hath in it a more 
modest working. 

Duke F. You shall try but one fall. 

Cha. No, I warrant your grace, you shall not 
entreat him to a second, that have so mightily per- 
suaded him from a first. 

Orl. An you mean to mock me after, you should 220 
not have mocked me before : but come your ways. 



14 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

Ros. Now Hercules be thy speed, young man ! 

Cel. I would I were invisible, to catch the strong 
fellow by the leg. [Wrestle. 

Ros. O excellent young man ! 

Cel. If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can 
tell who should down. [Shout. Charles is thrown. 

Duke F. No more, no more. 

Orl. Yes, I beseech your grace : I am not yet 
well breathed. 230 

Duke F. How dost thou, Charles? 

Le Beau. He cannot speak, my lord. 

Duke F. Bear him away. What is thy name, 
young man? 

Orl. Orlando, my liege ; the youngest son of Sir 
Rowland de Boys. 

Duke F. I would thou hadst been son to some 
man else : 
The world esteemed thy father honourable, 
But I did find him still mine enemy : 
Thou shouldst have better pleased me with this 

deed, 240 

Hadst thou descended from another house. 
But fare thee well ; thou art a gallant youth : 
I would thou hadst told me of another father. 

[Exeunt Duke Fred., train, and Le Beau. 

Cel. Were I my father, coz, would I do this ? 

Orl. I am more proud to be Sir Rowland's son, 
His youngest son, — and would not change that 

calling, 
To be adopted heir to Frederick. 

Ros. My father loved Sir Rowland as his soul, 
And all the world was of my father's mind : 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 15 

Had I before known this young man his son, 

I should have given him tears unto entreaties, 250 

Ere he should thus have ventured. 

Cel. Gentle cousin, 

Let us go thank him and encourage him : 
My father's rough and envious disposition 
Sticks me at heart. Sir, you have well deserved : 
If you do keep your promises in love 
But justly, as you have exceeded all promise, 
Your mistress shall be happy. 

Ros. Gentleman, 

[Giving him a chain from her neck. 
Wear this for me, one out of suits with fortune, 
That could give more, but that her hand lacks 

means. 
Shall we go, coz ? 

Cel. Ay. Fare you well, fair gentleman. 260 

Orl. Can I not say, I thank you? My better 
parts 
Are all thrown down, and that which here stands up 
Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block. 

Ros. He calls us back : my pride fell with my 
fortunes ; 
I'll ask him what he would. Did you call, sir ? 
Sir, you have wrestled well and overthrown 
More than your enemies. 

Cel. Will you go, coz ? 

Ros. Have with you. Fare you well. 

[Exeunt Rosalind and Celia. 

Orl. What passion hangs these weights upon 
my tongue ? 
I cannot speak to her, yet she urged conference. 270 



16 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

poor Orlando, thou art overthrown ! 

Or Charles or something weaker masters thee. 

Re-enter Le Beau 

Le Beau. Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you 
To leave this place. Albeit you have deserved 
High commendation, true applause and love, 
Yet such is now the duke's condition 
That he misconstrues all that you have done. 
The duke is humorous ; what he is indeed, 
More suits you to conceive than I to speak of. 

Orl. I thank you, sir ; and, pray you, tell me this : 280 
Which of the two was daughter of the duke 
That here was at the wrestling? 

Le Beau. Neither his daughter, if we judge by 
manners ; 
But yet indeed the lesser is his daughter : 
The other is daughter to the banish'd duke, 
And here detain'd by her usurping uncle, 
To keep his daughter company ; whose loves 
Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters. 
But I can tell you that of late this duke 
Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece, 290 
Grounded upon no other argument 
But that the people praise her for her virtues 
And pity her for her good father's sake ; 
And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady 
Will suddenly break forth. Sir, fare you well : 
Hereafter, in a better world than this, 

1 shall desire more love and knowledge of you. 
Orl. I rest much bounden to you : fare you well. 

[Exit Le Beau. 



Scene Theee] AS YOU LIKE IT 17 

Thus must I from the smoke into the smother ; 
From tyrant duke unto a tyrant brother : 300 

But heavenly Rosalind ! [Exit. 

Scene III — A room in the palace 
Enter Celia and Rosalind 

Cel. Why, cousin! why, Rosalind ! Cupid have 
mercy ! not a word ? 

Ros. Not one to throw at a dog. 

Cel. No, thy words are too precious to be cast 
away upon curs; throw some of them at me; 
come, lame me with reasons. 

Ros. Then there were two cousins laid up ; when 
the one should be lamed with reasons and the other 
mad without any. 

Cel. But is all this for your father ? 10 

Ros. No, some of it is for my child's father. O, 
how full of briars is this working-day world ! 

Cel. They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon 
thee in holiday foolery: if we walk not in the 
trodden paths, our very petticoats will catch them. 

Ros. I could shake them off my coat: these 
burs are in my heart. 

Cel. Hem them away. 

Ros. I would try, if I could cry " hem " and have 
him. 20 

Cel. Come, come, wrestle with thy affections. 

Ros. O, they take the part of a better wrestler 
than myself ! 

Cel. O, a good wish upon you ! you will try in 
time, in despite of a fall. But, turning these jests 



18 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

out of service, let us talk in good earnest : is it 
possible, on such a sudden, you should fall into so 
strong a liking with old Sir Rowland's youngest 
son? 

Ros. The duke my father loved his father dearly. 30 

Cel. Doth it therefore ensue that you should 
love his son dearly? By this kind of chase, I 
should hate him, for my father hated his father 
dearly; yet I hate not Orlando. 

Ros. No, faith, hate him not, for my sake. 

Cel. Why should I not? doth he not deserve 
well? 

Ros. Let me love him for that, and do you love 
him because I do. Look, here comes the duke. 40 

Cel. With his eyes full of anger. 

Enter Duke Frederick, with Lords 

Duke F. Mistress, dispatch you with your safest 
haste 
And get you from our court. 

Ros. Me, uncle? 

Duke F. You, cousin : 

Within these ten days if that thou be'st found 
So near our public court as twenty miles, 
Thou diest for it. 

Ros. I do beseech your grace, 

Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me : 
If with myself I hold intelligence 
Or have acquaintance with mine own desires, 50 

If that I do not dream or be not frantic, — 
As I do trust I am not — then, dear uncle, 
Never so much as in a thought unborn 



Scene Three] AS YOU LIKE IT 19 

Did I offend your highness. 

Duke F. Thus do all traitors : 

If their purgation did consist in words, 
They are as innocent as grace itself : 
Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not. 

Ros. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a 
traitor : 
Tell me whereon the likelihood depends. 

Duke F. Thou art thy father's daughter ; there's 

enough. 60 

Ros. So was I when your highness took his 
dukedom ; 
So was I when your highness banish'd him : 
Treason is not inherited, my lord ; 
Or, if we did derive it from our friends, 
What's that to me ? my father was no traitor : 
Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much 
To think my poverty is treacherous. 

Cel. Dear sovereign, hear me speak. 

Duke F. Ay, Celia ; we stay'd her for your sake, 
Else had she with her father ranged along. 70 

Cel. I did not then entreat to have her stay ; 
It was your pleasure and your own remorse : 
I was too young that time to value her ; 
But now I know her : if she be a traitor, 
Why so am I ; we still have slept together, 
Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together, 
And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans, 
Still we went coupled and inseparable. 

Duke F. She is too subtle for thee; and her 
smoothness, 
Her very silence and her patience so 



20 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

Speak to the people, and they pity her. 
Thou art a fool : she robs thee of thy name ; 
And thou wilt show more bright and seem more 

virtuous 
When she is gone. Then open not thy lips : 
Firm and irrevocable is my doom 
Which I have pass'd upon her ; she is banish'd. 

Cel. Pronounce that sentence then on me, my 
liege. 
I cannot live out of her company. 

Duke F. You are a fool. You, niece, provide 
yourself : 
If you outstay the time, upon mine honour, 90 

And in the greatness of my word, you die. 

[Exeunt Duke Frederick and Lords. 

Cel. O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go ? 
Wilt thou change fathers ? I will give thee mine. 
I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am. 

Ros. I have more cause. 

Cel. Thou hast not, cousin : 

Prithee, be cheerful : know'st thou not, the duke 
Hath banish'd me, his daughter ? 

Ros. That he hath not. 

Cel. No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the 
love 
Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one : 
Shall we be sunder'd ? shall we part, sweet girl ? 100 
No : let my father seek another heir. 
Therefore devise with me how we may fly, 
Whither to go and what to bear with us ; 
And do not seek to take your change upon you, 
To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out ; 



Scene Three] AS YOU LIKE IT 21 

For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale, 
Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee. 

Ros. Why, whither shall we go ? 

Cel. To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden. 

Ros. Alas, what danger will it be to us, no 

Maids as we are, to travel forth so far ! 
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold. 

Cel. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire 
And with a kind of umber smirch my face ; 
The like do you : so shall we pass along 
And never stir assailants. 

Ros. Were it not better, 

Because that I am more than common tall, 
That I did suit me all points like a man ? 
A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh, 
A boar-spear in my hand ; and — in my heart 120 
Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will — 
We'll have a swashing and a martial outside, 
As niany other mannish cowards have 
That do outface it with their semblances. 

Cel. What shall I call thee when thou art a 
man? 

Ros. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own 
page; 
And therefore look you call me Ganymede. 
But what will you be call'd ? 

Cel. Something that hath a reference to my 
state ; 
No longer Celia, but Aliena. 130 

Ros. But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal 
The clownish fool out of your father's court ? 
Would he not be a comfort to our travel ? 



22 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

Cel. He'll go along o'er the wide world with me ; 
Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away, 
And get our jewels and our wealth together, 
Devise the fittest time and safest way 
To hide us from pursuit that will be made 
After my flight. Now go we in content 
To liberty and not to banishment. [Exeunt. i*o 



ACT II 

Scene I — The Forest of Arden 

Enter Duke senior, Amiens, and two or three Lords, 
like foresters 

Duke S. Now, my co-mates and brothers in 
exile, 
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet 
Than that of painted pomp ? Are not these woods 
More free from peril than the envious court ? 
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, 
The seasons' difference, as the icy fang 
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, 
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, 
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say 
" This is no flattery : these are counsellors 10 

Jhat feelingly persuade me what I am." 
I Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head ; 
And this our life exempt from public haunt 
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 



Scene One] AS YOU LIKE IT 23 

Sermons in stones and good in every thing. 
I would not change it. 

Ami. Happy is your grace, 

That can translate the stubbornness of fortune 
Into so quiet and so sweet a style. 20 

Duke S. Come, shall we go and kill us venison? 
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, 
Being native burghers of this desert city, 
Should in their own confines with forked heads 
Have their round haunches gored. 

First Lord. Indeed, my lord, 

The melancholy Jaques grieves at that, 
And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp 
Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you. 
To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself 
Did steal behind him as he lay along 30 

Under an oak whose antique root peeps out 
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood : 
To the which place a poor sequester'd stag, 
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt, 
Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord, 
The wretched animal heaved forth such groans 
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat 
Almost to bursting, and the big round tears 
Coursed one another down his innocent nose 
In piteous chase ; and thus the hairy fool, 40 

Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, 
Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook, 
Augmenting it with tears. 

Duke S. But what said Jaques ? 

Did he not moralize this spectacle ? 

First Lord. O, yes, into a thousand similes. 



24 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

First, for his weeping into the needless stream ; 

" Poor deer," quoth he, " thou makest a testament 

As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more 

To that which had too much: " then, being there alone, 

Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends, 50 

" 'Tis right :" quoth he, " thus misery doth part 

The flux of company :" anon a careless herd, 

Full of the pasture, jumps along by him 

And never stays to greet him ; " Aye," quoth Jaques, 

" Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens ; 

'Tis just the fashion : wherefore do you look 

Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?" 

Thus most invectively he pierceth through 

The body of the country, city, court, 

Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we 60 

Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what's worse, 

To fright the animals and to kill them up 

In their assign'd and native dwelling-place. 

Duke S. And did you leave him in this contem- 
plation ? 

Sec. Lord. We did, my lord, weeping and com- 
menting 
Upon the sobbing deer. 

Duke S. Show me the place : 

I love to cope him in these sullen fits, 
For then he's full of matter. 

First Lord. I'll bring you to him straight. 

[Exeunt. 
Scene II — A room in the palace 
Enter Duke Frederick, with Lords 

Duke F. Can it be possible that no man saw 
them? 



Scene Three] AS YOU LIKE IT 25 

It cannot be : some villains of my court 
Are of consent and sufferance in this. 

First Lord. I cannot hear of any that did see her. 
The ladies, her attendants of her chamber, 
Saw her a-bed, and in the morning early 
They found the bed untreasured of their mistress. 

Sec. Lord. My lord, the roynish clown, at whom 
so oft 
Your grace was wont to laugh, is also missing. 
Hisperia, the princess* gentlewoman, 10 

Confesses that she secretly o'erheard 
Your daughter and her cousin much commend 
The parts and graces of the wrestler 
That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles ; 
And she believes, wherever they are gone, 
That youth is surely in their company. 

Duke F. Send to his brother ; fetch that gallant 
hither ; 
If he be absent, bring his brother to me ; 
I'll make him find him : do this suddenly, 
And let not search and inquisition quail 20 

To bring again these foolish runaways. [Exeunt 

Scene III — Before Oliver's house 
Enter Orlando and Adam, meeting 

Orl. Who's there? 

Adam. What, my young master ? O my gentle 
master ! 
O my sweet master ! O you memory 
Of old Sir Rowland ! why, what make you here ? 
Why are you virtuous ? why do people love you ? 



26 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

And wherefore are you gentle, strong and valiant ? 

Why would you be so fond to overcome 

The bonny priser of the humorous duke ? 

Your praise is come too swiftly home before you. 

Know you not, master, to some kind of men 10 

Their graces serve them but as enemies ? 

No more do yours : your virtues, gentle master, 

Are sanctified and holy traitors to you. 

O, what a world is this, when what is comely 

Envenoms him that bears it ! 

Orl. Why, what's the matter ? 

Adam. O unhappy youth ! 

Come not within these doors ; within this roof 
The enemy of all your graces lives : 
Your brother — no, no brother ; yet the son — 
Yet not the son, I will not call him son 20 

Of him I was about to call his father — 
Hath heard your praises, and this night he means 
To burn the lodging where you use to lie 
And you within it : if he fail of that, 
He will have other means to cut you off. 
I overheard him and his practices. 
This is no place ; this house is but a butchery : 
Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it. 

Orl. Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have 
me go? 

Adam. No matter whither, so you come not here. 30 

Orl. What, wouldst thou have me go and beg 
my food ? 
Or with a base and boisterous sword enforce 
A thievish living on the common road ? 
This I must do, or know not what to do : 



Scene Three] AS YOU LIKE IT 27 

Yet this I will not do, do how I can ; 
I rather will subject me to the malice 
Of a diverted blood and bloody brother. 

Adam. But do not so. I have five hundred 
crowns, 
The thrifty hire I saved under your father, 
Which I did store to be my foster-nurse 40 

When service should in my old limbs lie lame 
And unregarded age in corners thrown : 
Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed, 
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, 
Be comfort to my age ! Here is the gold ; 
All this I give you. Let me be your servant : 
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty ; 
For in my youth I never did apply 
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, 
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo 50 

The means of weakness and debility ; 
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, 
Frosty, but kindly : let me go with you ; 
I'll do the service of a younger man 
In all your business and necessities. 

Orl. O good old man, how well in thee appears 
The constant service of the antique world, 
When service sweat for duty, not for meed ! 
Thou art not for the fashion of these times, 
Where none will sweat but for promotion, 60 

And having that, do choke their service up 
Even with the having : it is not so with thee. 
But, poor old man, thou prunest a rotten tree, 
That cannot so much as a blossom yield 
In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry. 



28 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

But come thy ways ; we'll go along together, 
And ere we have thy youthful wages spent, 
We'll light upon some settled low content. 

Adam. Master, go on, and I will follow thee, 
To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty. 70 

From seventeen years till now almost fourscore 
Here lived I, but now live here no more. 
At seventeen years many their fortunes seek ; 
But at fourscore it is too late a week : 
Yet fortune cannot recompense me better 
Then to die well and not my master's debtor. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene IV — The Forest of Arden 

Enter Rosalind for Ganymede, Celia for Aliena, 
and Touchstone 

Ros. O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits ! 

Touch. I care not for my spirits, if my legs were 
not weary. 

Ros. I could find in my heart to disgrace my 
man's apparel and to cry like a woman ; but I must 
comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose 
ought to show itself courageous to petticoat: 
therefore courage, good Aliena ! 

Cel. I pray you, bear with me ; I cannot go no 
further. 10 

Touch. For my part, I had rather bear with you 
than bear you ; yet I should bear no cross if I did 
bear you, for I think you have no money in your 
purse. 

Ros. Well, this is the forest of Arden. 

Touch. Ay, now am I in Arden ; the more fool 



Scene Four] AS YOU LIKE IT 29 

I; when I was at home, I was in a better place: 
but travellers must be content. 
Ros. Ay, be so, good Touchstone. 

Enter Corin and Silvitjs 

Look you, who comes here ; a young man and an 20 
old in solemn talk. 

Cor. That is the way to make her scorn you still. 

Sil. O Corin, that thou knew'st how I do love 
her! 

Cor. I partly guess ; for I have loved ere now. 

Sil. No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess, 
Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover 
As ever sigh'd upon a midnight pillow : 
But if thy love were ever like to mine — 
As sure I think did never man love so — 
How many actions most ridiculous 30 

Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy ? 

Cor. Into a thousand that I have forgotten. 

Sil. O, thou didst then ne'er love so heartily ! 
If thou remember' st not the slightest folly 
That ever love did make thee run into, 
Thou hast not loved : 
Or if thou hast not sat as I do now, 
Wearing thy hearer in thy mistress' praise, 
Thou hast not loved : 

Or if thou hast not broke from company 40 

Abruptly, as my passion now makes me, 
Thou hast not loved. 
O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe ! [Exit 

Ros. Alas, poor shepherd ! searching of thy 
wound, 



30 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

I have by hard adventure found mine own. 

Touch. And I mine. I remember, when I was 
in love I broke my sword upon a stone and bid him 
take that for coming a-night to Jane Smile ; and I 
remember the kissing of her batlet and the cow's 
dugs that her pretty chopt hands had milked ; and 50 
I remember the wooing of a peascod instead of her, 
from whom I took two cods and, giving her them 
again, said with weeping tears " Wear these for my 
sake." We that are true lovers run into strange 
capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all 
nature in love mortal in folly. 

Ros. Thou speakest wiser than thou art ware of. 

Touch. Nay, I shall ne'er be ware of mine own 
wit till I break my shins against it. 60 

Ros. Jove, Jove ! this shepherd's passion 
Is much upon my fashion. 

Touch. And mine ; but it grows something stale 
with me. 

Cel. I pray you, one of you question yond man 
If he for gold will give us any food : 
I faint almost to death. 

Touch. Holla, you clown ! 

Ros. Peace, fool : he's not thy kinsman. 

Cor. Who calls ? 

Touch. Your betters, sir. 

Cor. Else are they very wretched. 

Ros. Peace, I say. Good even to you, friend. 

Cor. And to you, gentle sir, and to you all. 70 

Ros. I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold 
Can in this desert place buy entertainment, 
Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed : 



Scene Four] AS YOU LIKE IT 31 

Here's a young maid with travel much oppress'd 
And faints for succour. 

Cor. Fair sir, I pity her 

And wish, for her sake more than for mine own, 
My fortunes were more able to relieve her ; 
But I am shepherd to another man 
And do not shear the fleeces that I graze : 
My master is of churlish disposition su 

And little recks to find the way to heaven 
By doing deeds of hospitality : 
Besides, his cote, his flocks and bounds of feed 
Are now on sale, and at our sheepcote now, 
By reason of his absence, there is nothing 
That you will feed on ; but what is, come see, 
And in my voice most welcome shall you be. 

Ros. What is he that shall buy his flock and 
pasture ? 

Cor. That young swain that you saw here but 
erewhile, 
That little cares for buying any thing. 90 

Ros. I pray thee, if it stand with honesty, 
Buy thou the cottage, pasture and the flock, 
And thou shalt have to pay for it of us. 

Cel. And we will mend thy wages. I like this 
place, 
And willingly could waste my time in it. 

Cor. Assuredly the thing is to be sold : 
Go with me : if you like upon report 
The soil, the profit and this kind of life, 
I will your very faithful feeder be 
And buy it with your gold right suddenly. 

[Exeunt. 



32 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

Scene V — The forest 

Enter Amiens, Jaques, and others 

Song 

Ami. Under the greenwood tree 
Who loves to lie with me, 
And turn his merry note 
Unto the sweet bird's throat, 
Come hither, come hither, come hither : 
Here shall he see 
No enemy 
But winter and rough weather. 

Jaq. More, more, I prithee, more. 

Ami. It will make you melancholy, Monsieur 
Jaques. 10 

Jaq. I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can 
suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks 
eggs. More, I prithee, more. 

Ami. My voice is ragged : I know I cannot 
please you. 

Jaq. I do not desire you to please me; I do 
desire you to sing. Come, more ; another stanzo : 
call you 'em stanzos ? 

Ami. What you will, Monsieur Jaques. 20 

Jaq. Nay, I care not for their names ; they owe 
me nothing. Will you sing ? 

Ami. More at your request than to please 
myself. 

Jaq. Well then, if ever I thank any man, I'll 
thank you; but that they call compliment is like 
the encounter of two dog-apes, and when a man 
thanks me heartily, methinks I have given him a 



Scene Five] AS YOU LIKE IT 33 

penny and he renders me the beggarly thanks. 
Come, sing: and you that will not, hold your 30 
tongues. 

Ami. Well, I'll end the song. Sirs, cover the 
while; the duke will drink under this tree. He 
hath been all this day to look you. 

Jaq. And I have been all this day to avoid him. 
He is too disputable for my company : I think of 
as many matters as he, but I give heaven thanks 
and make v no boast of them. Come, warble, come. 

Song 

Who doth ambition shun [All together here. 40 
And loves to live i' the sun, 
Seeking the food he eats 
And pleased with what he gets, 
Come hither, come hither, come hither : 
Here shall he see 
No enemy 
But winter and rough weather. 
Jaq. I'll give you a verse to this note that I 
made yesterday in despite of my invention. 

Ami. And I'll sing it. 50 

Jaq. Thus it goes : — 

If it do come to pass 

That any man turn ass, 

Leaving his wealth and ease 

A stubborn will to please, 
Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame : 

Here shall he see 

Gross fools as he, 
An if he will come to me. 



34 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

Ami. What's that "ducdame"? 60 

Jaq. 'T is a Greek invocation, to call fools into 

a circle. I'll go sleep, if I can; if I cannot, I'll 

rail against all the first-born of Egypt. 

Ami. And I'll go seek the duke : his banquet is 

prepared. [Exeunt severally. 

Scene VI — The forest 
Enter Orlando and Adam 

Adam. Dear master, I can go no further : O, 
I die for food ! Here lie I down, and measure out 
my grave. Farewell, kind master. 

Orl. Why, how now, Adam ! no greater heart in 
thee? Live a little; comfort a little; cheer thy- 
self a little. If this uncouth forest yield any thing 
savage, I will either be food for it or bring it for food 
to thee. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy 
powers. For my sake be comfortable ; hold death 
awhile at the arm's end : I will here be with thee 10 
presently ; and if I bring thee not something to eat, 
I will give thee leave to die : but if thou diest before 
I come, thou art a mocker of my labour. Well 
said ! thou lookest cheerly, and I'll be with thee 
quickly. Yet thou liest in the bleak air : come, I 
will bear thee to some shelter ; and thou shalt not 
die for lack of a dinner, if there live any thing in this 
desert. Cheerly, good Adam ! [Exeunt. 






Scene Seven] AS YOU LIKE IT 35 

Scene VII — The forest 

A table set out. Enter Duke senior, Amiens, and Lords 

like outlaws 

Duke S. I think he be transform'd into a beast ; 
For I can no where find him like a man. 

First Lord. My lord, he is but even now gone 
hence : 
Here was he merry, hearing of a song. 

Duke S. If he, compact of jars, grow musical, 
We shall have shortly discord in the spheres. 
Go, seek him : tell him I would speak with him. 

Enter Jaques 

First Lord. He saves my labour by his own 
approach. 

Duke S. Why, how now, monsieur ! what a life 
is this, 
That your poor friends must woo your company ? 10 
What, you look merrily ! 

Jaq. A fool, a fool ! I met a fool i' the forest, 
A motley fool ; a miserable world ! 
As I do live by food, I met a fool ; 
Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, 
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms, 
In good set terms and yet a motley fool. 
" Good-morrow, fool," quoth I. "No, sir," quoth he, 
" Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune : " 
And then he drew a dial from his poke, 20 

And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye, 
Says very wisely, " It is ten o'clock : 
Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags : 



36 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

'T is but an hour ago since it was nine, 

And after one hour more 'twill be eleven ; 

And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, 

And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot ; 

And thereby hangs a tale." When I did hear 

The motley fool thus moral on the time, 

My lungs began to crow like chanticleer, 30 

That fools should be so deep-contemplative, 

And I did laugh sans intermission 

An hour by his dial. O noble fool ! 

A worthy fool ! Motley's the only wear. 

Duke S. What fool is this ? 

Jaq. O worthy fool! One that hath been a 
courtier, 
And says, if ladies be but young and fair, 
They have the gift to know it : and in his brain, 
Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit 
After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd 40 
With observation, the which he vents 
In mangled forms. O that I were a fool ! 
I am ambitious for a motley coat. 

Duke S. Thou shalt have one. 

Jaq. It is my only suit ; 

Provided that you weed your better judgements 
Of all opinion that grows rank in them 
That I am wise. I must have liberty 
Withal, as large a charter as the wind, 
To blow on whom I please ; for so fools have ; 
And they that are most galled with my folly, 50 

They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they 

so? 
The " why" is plain as way to parish church : 



Scene Seven] AS YOU LIKE IT 37 

He that a fool doth very wisely hit 

Doth very foolishly, although he smart, 

Not to seem senseless of the bob : if not, 

The wise man's folly is anatomized 

Even by the squandering glances of the fool. 

Invest me in my motley ; give me leave 

To speak my mind, and I will through and through 

Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, 60 

If they will patiently receive my medicine. 

Duke S. Fie on thee ! I can tell what thou 
wouldst do. 

Jaq. What, for a counter, would I do but good ? 

Duke S. Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding 
sin: 
For thou thyself hast been a libertine, 
As sensual as the brutish sting itself ; 
And all the embossed sores and headed evils, 
That thou with license of free foot hast caught, 
Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world. 

Jaq. Why, who cries out on pride, 70 

That can therein tax any private party ? 
Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea, 
Till that the wearer's very means do ebb ? 
What woman in the city do I name. 
When that I say the city- woman bears 
The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders ? 
Who can come in and say that I mean her, 
When such a one as she such is her neighbour ? 
Or what is he of basest function 

That says his bravery is not on my cost, so 

Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits 
His folly to the mettle of my speech ? 



38 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

There then; how then? what then? Let me see 

wherein 
My tongue hath wrong'd him : if it do him right, 
Then he hath wrong'd himself ; if he be free, 
Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies, 
Unclaim'd of any man. But who comes here ? 

Enter Orlando, with his sword drawn 

Orl. Forbear, and eat no more. 
Jaq. Why, I have eat none yet. 

Orl. Nor shalt not, till necessity be served. 
Jaq. Of what kind should this cock come of ? 90 
Duke S. Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy 
distress, 
Or else a rude despiser of good manners, 
That in civility thou seem'st so empty ? 

Orl. You touch'd my vein at first : the thorny 
point 
Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show 
Of smooth civility : yet am I inland bred 
And know some nurture. But forbear, I say : 
He dies that touches any of this fruit 
Till I and my affairs are answered. 100 

Jaq. An you will not be answered with reason, 
I must die. 

Duke S. What would you have ? Your gentle- 
ness shall force 
More than your force move us to gentleness. 
Orl. I almost die for food; and let me have 

it. 
Duke S. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our 
table. 



Scene Seven] AS YOU LIKE IT 39 

Orl. Speak you so gently ? Pardon me, I pray 
you: 
I thought that all things had been savage here ; 
And therefore put I on the countenance 
Of stern commandment. But whate'er you are 
That in this desert inaccessible, no 

Under the shade of melancholy boughs, 
Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time ; 
If ever you have look'd on better days, 
If ever been where bells have knolPd to church, 
If ever sat at any good man's feast, 
If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear 
And know what 't is to pity and be pitied, 
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be : 
In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword. 

Duke S. True is it that we have seen better 

days, 120 

And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church 
And sat at good men's feasts and wiped our eyes 
Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd : 
And therefore sit you down in gentleness 
And take upon command what help we have 
That to you wanting may be minister'd. 

Orl. Then but forbear your food a little while, 
Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn 
And give it food. There is an old poor man, 
Who after me hath many a weary step 130 

Limp'd in pure love : till he be first sufficed, 
Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger, 
I will not touch a bit. 

Duke S. Go find him out, 

And we will nothing waste till you return. 



40 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

Orl. I thank ye; and be blest for your good 
comfort ! [Exit. 

Duke S. Thou seest we are not all alone un- 
happy : 
This wide and universal theatre 
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene 
Wherein we play in. 

Jaq. All the world's a stage, 

And all the men and women merely players : 140 

They have their exits and their entrances ; 
And one man in his time plays many parts, 
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, 
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. 
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel 
And shining morning face, creeping like snail 
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, 
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad 
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, 
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, iso 
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, 
Seeking the bubble reputation 
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, 
In fair round belly with good capon lined, 
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, 
Full of wise saws and modern instances ; 
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts 
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, 
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, 
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide ieo 
For his shrunk shank ; and his big manly voice, 
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes 
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, 



Scene Seven] AS YOU LIKE IT 41 

That ends this strange eventful history, 

Is second childishness and mere oblivion, 

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 

Re-enter Orlando with Adam 

Duke S. Welcome. Set down your venerable 
burden 
And let him feed. 

Orl. I thank you most for him. 

Adam. So had you need : 

I scarce can speak to thank you for myself. 170 

Duke S. Welcome ; fall to : I will not trouble you 
As yet, to question you about your fortunes. 
Give us some music ; and, good cousin, sing. 

Song 
Ami. Blow, blow, thou winter wind, 
Thou art not so unkind 
As man's ingratitude ; 
Thy tooth is not so keen, 
Because thou art not seen, 

Although thy breath be rude. iso 

Heigh-ho ! sing, heigh-ho ! unto the green holly : 
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly ; 
Then, heigh-ho, the holly ! 
This life is most jolly. 

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, 
That dost not bite so nigh 

As benefits forgot : 
Though thou the waters warp, 
Thy sting is not so sharp 
As friend remember'd not. 
Heigh-ho ! sing, &c. 



42 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

Duke S. If that you were the good Sir Rowland's 
son, 
As you have whisper'd faithfully you were, 
And as mine eye doth his effigies witness 
Most truly limn'd and living in your face, 
Be truly welcome hither : I am the duke 
That loved your father : the residue of your fortune, 
Go to my cave and tell me. Good old man, 
Thou art right welcome as thy master is. 
Support him by the arm. Give me your hand, 
And let me all you fortunes understand. [Exeunt. 200 



ACT III 

Scene I — A room in the palace 
Enter Duke Frederick, Lords, and Oliver 

Duke F. Not see him since ? Sir, sir, that can- 
not be : 
But were I not the better part made mercy, 
I should not seek an absent argument 
Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it : 
Find out thy brother, wheresoe'er he is ; 
Seek him with candle ; bring him dead or living 
Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more 
To seek a living in our territory. 
Thy lands and all things that thou dost call thine 
Worth seizure do we seize into our hands, 10 

Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother's mouth 
Of what we think against thee. 

01%. O that your highness knew my heart in this ! 
I never loved my brother in my life. 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 43 

Duke F. More villain thou. Well, push him 
out of doors ; 
And let my officers of such a nature 
Make an extent upon his house and lands ; 
Do this expediently and turn him going. [Exeunt 

Scene II — The forest 
Enter Orlando, with a paper 
Orl. Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love : 
And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, 
, survey 

With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere 
above, 
Thy huntress' name that my full life 
doth sway. 

O Rosalind ! these trees shall be my books 
And in their barks my thoughts I'll 
character ; 
That every eye which in this forest looks 

Shall see thy virtue witness'd everywhere. 
Run, run, Orlando ; carve on every tree 
The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she. 10 

[Exit 
Enter Corin and Touchstone 

Cor. And how like you this shepherd's life, 
Master Touchstone ? 

Touch. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is 
a good life ; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, 
it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like 
it very well ; but in respect that it is private, it is 
a very vile life. Now, in respect it is in the fields, 



44 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

it pleaseth me well ; but in respect it is not in the 
court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life, look you, 20 
it fits my humour well; but as there is no more 
plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. 
Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd ? 

Cor. No more but that I know the more one 
sickens the worse at ease he is; and that he that 
wants money, means and content is without three 
good friends ; that the property of rain is to wet and 
fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, 
and that a great cause of the night is lack of the 
sun ; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor 30 
art may complain of good breeding or comes of a 
very dull kindred. 

Touch. Such a one is a natural philosopher. 
Wast ever in court, shepherd ? 

Cor. No, truly. 

Touch. Then thou art damned. 

Cor. Nay, I hope. 

Touch. Truly, thou art damned, like an ill- 
roasted egg all on one side. 

Cor. For not being at court ? Your reason. | 40 

Touch. Why, if thou never wast at court, thou 
never sawest good manners; if thou never sawest 
good manners, then thy manners must be wicked ; 
and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. 
Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd. 

Cor. Not a whit, Touchstone : those that are 
good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the 
country as the behaviour of the country is most 
mockable at the court. You told me you salute 
not at the court, but you kiss your hands ! that so 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 45 

* 

courtesy would be uncleanly, if courtiers were 
shepherds. 

Touch. Instance, briefly ; come, instance. 

Cor. Why, we are still handling our ewes, and 
their fells, you know, are greasy. 

Touch. Why, do not your courtier's hands 
sweat ? and is not the grease of a mutton as whole- 
some as the sweat of a man? Shallow, shallow. 
A better instance, I say ; come. 

Cor. Besides, our hands are hard. 60 

Touch. You lips will feel them the sooner. 
Shallow again. A more sounder instance, come. 

Cor. And they are often tarred over with the 
surgery of our sheep ; and would you have us kiss 
tar ? The courtier's hands are perfumed with civet. 

Touch. Most shallow man ! thou worms-meat, 
in respect of a good piece of flesh indeed ! Learn 
of the wise, and perpend : civet is of a baser birth 
than tar, the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend 70 
the instance, shepherd. 

Cor. You have too courtly a wit for me : I'll 
rest. 

Touch. Wilt thou rest damned ? God help thee, 
shallow man ! God make incision in thee ! thou 
art raw. 

Cor. Sir, I am a true labourer : I earn that I eat, 
get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's 
happiness, glad of other men's good, content with 
my harm, and the greatest of my pride is to see my so 
ewes graze and my lambs suck. 

Touch. That is another simple sin in you, to 
bring the ewes and the rams together. If thou 



46 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

beest not damned for this, the devil himself will 
have no shepherds; I cannot see else how thou 
shouldst 'scape. 90 

Cor. Here comes young Master Ganymede, my 
new mistress' brother. 

Enter Rosalind, with a paper, reading 

Ros. From the east to western Ind, 
No jewel is like Rosalind. 
Her worth, being mounted on the wind, 
Through all the world bears Rosalind. 
All the pictures fairest lined 
Are but black to Rosalind. 
Let no fair be kept in mind 
But the fair of Rosalind. 100 

Touch. I'll rhyme you so eight years together, 
dinners and suppers and sleeping-hours excepted : 
it is the right butter-women's rank to market. 
Ros. Out, fool ! 
Touch. For a taste : 

If a hart do lack a hind, 
Let him seek out Rosalind. 
If the cat will after kind, 
So be sure will Rosalind. 110 

Winter garments must be lined, 
So must slender Rosalind. 
They that reap must sheaf and bind ; 
Then to cart with Rosalind. 
Sweetest nut hath sourest rind, 
Such a nut is Rosalind. 
He that sweetest rose will find 
1 Must find love's prick and Rosalind.' 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 47 

This is the very false gallop of verses : why do you 
infect yourself with them ? 120 

Ros. Peace, you dull fool ! I found them on a tree. 

Touch. Truly, the tree yields bad fruit. 

Ros. I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff 
it with a medlar : then it will be the earliest fruit 
i' the country ; for you'll be rotten ere you be half 
ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar. 

Touch. You have said; but whether wisely or 
no, let the forest judge. 130 

Enter Celia, with a writing 

Ros. Peace ! 
Here comes my sister, reading : stand aside. 
Cel. [Reads] 

Why should this a desert be ? 

For it is unpeopled ? No ; 
Tongues I'll hang on every tree, 

That shall civil sayings show : 
Some, how brief the life of man 

Runs his erring pilgrimage, 
That the stretching of a span 

Buckles in his sum of age ; uo 

Some, of violated vows 

'Twixt the souls of friend and friend : 
But upon the fairest boughs, 

Or at every sentence end, 
Will I Rosalinda write, 

Teaching all that read to know 
The quintessence of every sprite 

Heaven would in little show. 
Therefore Heaven Nature charged 



48 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

That one body should be filPd 150 

With all graces wide-enlarged : 

Nature presently distill'd 
Helen's cheek, but not her heart, 

Cleopatra's majesty, 
Atalanta's better part, 

Sad Lucretia's modesty. 
Thus Rosalind of many parts 

By heavenly synod was devised, 
Of many faces, eyes and hearts, 

To have the touches dearest prized. 160 

Heaven would that she these gifts should have, 
And I to live and die her slave. 
Ros. O most gentle pulpiter ! what tedious 
homily of love have you wearied your parishioners 
withal, and never cried "Have patience, good 
people ! " 

Cel. How now ! back, friends ! Shepherd, go 
off a little. Go with him, sirrah. 

Touch. Come, shepherd, let us make an honour- 
able retreat; though not with bag and baggage, 170 
yet with scrip and scrippage. 

[Exeunt Covin and Touchstone. 
Cel. Didst thou hear these verses ? 
Ros. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; 
for some of them had in them more feet than the 
verses would bear. 

Cel. That's no matter : the feet might bear the 
verses. 

Ros. Ay, but the feet were lame and could 
not bear themselves without the verse and there- 
fore stood lamely in the verse. iso 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 49 

Cel. But didst thou hear without wondering 
how thy name should be hanged and carved upon 
these trees ? 

Ros. I was seven of the nine days out of the 
wonder before you came; for look here what I 
found on a palm-tree. I was never so berhymed 
since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, 
which I can hardly remember. 

Cel. Trow you who hath done this ? 

Ros. Is it a man ? 190 

Cel. And a chain, that you once wore, about 
his neck. Change you colour ? 

Ros. I prithee, who ? 

Cel. O Lord, Lord! it is a hard matter for 
friends to meet; but mountains may be removed 
with earthquakes and so encounter. 

Ros. Nay, but who is it ? 

Cel. Is it possible ? 

Ros. Nay, I prithee now with most petitionary 
vehemence, tell me who it is. 200 

Cel. O wonderful, wonderful, and most won- 
derful wonderful ! and yet again wonderful, and 
after that, out of all hooping ! 

Ros. Good my complexion ! dost thou think, 
though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a 
doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch 
of delay more is a South-sea of discovery; I 
prithee, tell me who is it quickly, and speak apace. 
I would thou couldst stammer, that thou mightst 
pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine 210 
comes out of a narrow-mouthed bottle, either 
too much at once, or none at all. I prithee, take 



50 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink thy 
tidings. Is he of God's making? What manner 
of man? Is his head worth a hat, or his chin 
worth a beard ? 

Cel. Nay, he hath but a little beard. 

Ros. Why, God will send more, if the man 220 
will be thankful: let me stay the growth of his 
beard, if thou delay me not the knowledge of his 
chin. 

Cel. It is young Orlando, that tripped up the 
wrestler's heels and your heart both in an instant. 

Ros. Nay, but the devil take mocking : speak, 
sad brow and true maid. 

Cel. F faith, coz, 'tis he. 

Ros. Orlando ? 

Cel. Orlando. 230 

Ros. Alas the day! what shall I do with my 
doublet and hose? What did he when thou 
sawest him? What said he? How looked he? 
Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did 
he ask for me ? Where remains he ? How parted 
he with thee ? and when shalt thou see him again ? 
Answer me in one word. 

Cel. You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth 
first : 'tis a word too great for any mouth of this 
age's size. To say ay and no to these particulars 240 
is more than to answer in a catechism. 

Ros. But doth he know that I am in this forest 
and in man's apparel? Looks he as freshly as he 
did the day he wrestled ? 

Cel. It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve 
the propositions of a lover; but take a taste of 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 51 

my finding him, and relish it with good observance. 
I found him under a tree, like a dropped acorn. 

Ros. It may well be called Jove's tree, when it 
drops forth such fruit. 250 

Cel. Give me audience, good madam. 

Ros. Proceed. 

Cel. There lay he, stretched along, like a 
wounded knight. 

Ros. Though it be pity to see such a sight, 
it well becomes the ground. 

Cel. Cry "holla" to thy tongue, I prithee; it 
curvets unseasonably. He was furnished like a 
hunter. 

Ros. O, ominous ! he comes to kill my heart. 260 

Cel. I would sing my song without a burden: 
thou bringest me out of tune. 

Ros. Do you not know I am a woman? when 
I think, I must speak. Sweet, say on. 

Cel. You bring me out. Soft! comes he not 
here? 

Enter Orlando and Jaques 

Ros. 'Tis he: slink by, and note him. 

Jaq. I thank you for your company; but, 
good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone. 270 

Orl. And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, 
I thank you too for your society. 

Jaq. God be wi' you: let's meet as little as 
we can. 

Orl. I do desire we may be better strangers. 

Jaq. I pray you, mar no more trees with writ- 
ing lovesongs in their barks. 



52 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

Orl. I pray you, mar no moe of my verses 
with reading them ill-favouredly. 

Jaq. Rosalind is your love's name ? 280 

Orl. Yes, just. 

Jaq. I do not like her name. 

Orl. There was no thought of pleasing you when 
she was christened. 

Jaq. What stature is she of ? 

Orl. Just as high as my heart. 

Jaq. You are full of pretty answers. Have 
you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, 
and conned them out of rings ? 

Orl. Not so; but I answer you right painted 290 
cloth, from whence you have studied your ques- 
tions. 

Jaq. You have a nimble wit: I think 'twas 
made of Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down with 
me? and we two will rail against our mistress 
the world and all our misery. 

Orl. I will chide no breather in the world but 
myself, against whom I know most faults. 

Jaq. The worst fault you have is to be in love. 300 

Orl. 'Tis a fault I will not change for your 
best virtue. I am weary of you. 

Jaq. By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when 
I found you. 

Orl. He is drowned in the brook : look but in 
and you shall see him. 

Jaq. There I shall see mine own figure. 

Orl. Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher. 

Jaq. I'll tarry no longer with you: farewell, 
good Signior Love. 310 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 53 

Orl. I am glad of your departure : adieu, good 
Monsieur Melancholy. [Exit Jaques. 

Ros. [Aside to Celia] I will speak to him like 
a saucy lackey and under that habit play the 
knave with him. Do you hear, forester? 

Orl. Very well : what would you ? 

Ros. I pray you, what is't o'clock ? 

Orl. You should ask me what time o' day: 
there's no clock in the forest. 

Ros. Then there is no true lover in the forest; 320 
else sighing every minute and groaning every hour 
would detect the lazy foot of Time as well as a clock. 

Orl. And why not the swift foot of Time? 
had not that been as proper ? 

Ros. By no means, sir : Time travels in divers 
paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time 
ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time 
gallops withal and who he stands still withal. 

Orl. I prithee, who doth he trot withal ? 330 

Ros. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid 
between the contract of her marriage and the day 
it is solemnized : if the interim be but a se'nnight, 
Time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of 
seven year. 

Orl. Who ambles Time withal ? 

Ros. With a priest that lacks Latin and a 
rich man that hath not the gout, for the one sleeps 
easily because he cannot study and the other lives 
merrily because he feels no pain, the one lacking 340 
the burden of lean and wasteful learning, the other 
knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury; 
these Time ambles withal. 



54 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

Orl. Who doth he gallop withal? 

Ros. With a thief to the gallows, for though 
he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself 
too soon there. 

Orl. Who stays it still withal ? 

Ros. With lawyers in the vacation; for they 
sleep between term and term and then they per- 350 
ceive not how Time moves. 

Orl. Where dwell you, pretty youth ? 

Ros. With this shepherdess, my sister; here 
in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petti- 
coat. 

Orl. Are you native of this place ? 

Ros. As the cony that you see dwell where she 
is kindled. 

Orl. Your accent is something finer than you 
could purchase in so removed a dwelling. 360 

Ros. I have been told so of many : but indeed 
an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, 
who was in his youth an inland man; one that 
knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. 
I have heard him read many lectures against it, 
and I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched 
with so many giddy offences as he hath generally 
taxed their whole sex withal. 

Orl. Can you remember any of the principal 
evils that he laid to the charge of women ? 370 

Ros. There were none principal; they were 
all like one another as halfpence are, every one 
fault seeming monstrous till his fellow-fault came 
to match it. 

Orl. I prithee recount some of them. 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 55 

Ros. No, I will not cast away my physic but 
on those that are sick. There is a man haunts 
the forest, that abuses our young plants with 
carving "Rosalind" on their barks: hangs odes 
upon hawthorns and elegies on brambles, all, 380 
forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind : if I could 
meet that fancy-monger, I would give him some 
good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian 
•of love upon him. 

Orl. I am he that is so love-shaked : I pray you, 
tell me your remedy. 

Ros. There is none of my uncle's marks upon 
you : he taught me how to know a man in love ; 
in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not pris- 
oner. 390 

Orl. What were his marks ? 

Ros. A lean cheek, which you have not, a 
blue eye and sunken, which you have not, an 
unquestionable spirit, which you have not, a 
beard neglected, which you have not; but I 
pardon you for that, for simply your having in 
beard is a younger brother's revenue : then your 
hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, 
your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied and 
every thing about you demonstrating a careless 400 
desolation; but you are no such man; you are 
rather point-device in your accoutrements as lov- 
ing yourself than seeming the lover of any other. 

Orl. Fair youth, I would I could make thee 
believe I love. 

Ros. Me believe it! you may as soon make 
her that you love believe it; which, I warrant, 



56 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

she is apter to do than to confess she does : that 
is one of the points in which women still give the 
lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are4io 
you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein 
Rosalind is so admired ? 

Orl. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand 
of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he. 

Ros. But are you so much in love as your 
rhymes speak ? 

Orl. Neither rhyme nor reason can express 
how much. 

Ros. Love is merely a madness, and, I tell 420 
you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as 
madmen do : and the reason why they are not so 
punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordi- 
nary that the whippers are in love too. Yet I 
profess curing it by counsel. 

Orl. Did you ever cure any so ? 

Ros. Yes, one, and in this manner. He was 
to imagine me his love, his mistress; and I set 
him every day to woo me : at which time would I, 
being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, 430 
changeable, longing and liking, proud, fantastical, 
apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of 
smiles, for every passion something and for no 
passion truly any thing, as boys and women are 
for the most part cattle of this colour : would 
now like him, now loathe him; then entertain 
him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then 
spit at him ; that I drave my suitor from his mad 
humour of love to a living humour of madness; 
which was, to forswear the full stream of the44o 



Scene Three] AS YOU LIKE IT 57 

world and to live in a nook merely monastic. And 
thus I cured him : and in this way will I take upon 
me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's 
heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in't. 

Orl. I would not be cured, youth. 

Ros. I would cure you, if you would but call me 
Rosalind and come every day to my cote and woo 
me. 

Orl. Now, by the faith of my love, I will: 
tell me where it is. 450 

Ros. Go with me to it and I'll show it you : 
and by the way you shall tell me where in the 
forest you live. Will you go ? 

Orl. With all my heart, good youth. 

Ros. Nay, you must call me Rosalind. Come, 
sister, will you go ? [Exeunt 

Scene III — The forest 
Enter Touchstone and Audrey; Jaques behind 
Touch. Come apace, good Audrey : I will 

fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? 

am I the man yet ? doth my simple feature content 

you? 

Aud. Your features ! Lord warrant us ! what 

features ? 

Touch. I am here with thee and thy goats, 

as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was 

among the Goths. 

Jaq. [Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse 10 

than Jove in a thatched house ! 

Touch. When a man's verses cannot be under- 
stood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the 



58 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

forward child Understanding, it strikes a man more 
dead than a great reckoning in a little room. 
Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical. 

Aud. I do not know what "poetical" is: is it 
honest in deed and word ? is it a true thing ? 

Touch. No, truly; for the truest poetry is 
the most feigning ; and lovers are given to poetry, 20 
and what they swear in poetry may be said as 
lovers they do feign. 

Aud. Do you wish then that the gods had 
made me poetical ? 

Touch. I do truly; for thou swearest to me 
thou art honest ; now, if thou wert a poet, I might 
have some hope thou didst feign. 

Aud. Would you not have me honest ? 

Touch. No, truly, unless thou wert hard- 
favoured ; for honesty coupled to beauty is to have 30 
honey a sauce to sugar. 

Jaq. [Aside] A material fool ! 

Aud. Well, I am not fair; and therefore I 
pray the gods make me honest. 

Touch. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon 
a foul slut were to put good meat into an unclean 
dish. 

Aud. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods 
I am foul. 

Touch. Well, praised be the gods for thy foul- 40 
ness ! sluttishness may come hereafter. But be 
it as it may be, I will marry thee, and to that end 
I have been with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar 
of the next village, who hath promised to meet me 
in this place of the forest and to couple us. 



Scene Three] AS YOU LIKE IT 59 

Jaq. [Aside] I would fain see this meeting. 

Aud. Well, the gods give us joy ! 

Touch. Amen. A man may, if he were of a 
fearful heart, stagger in this attempt; for here 
we have no temple but the wood, no assembly 50 
but horn-beasts. But what though ? Courage ! 
As horns are odious, they are necessary. It is 
said, "many a man knows no end of his goods" : 
right : many a man has good horns, and knows 
no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his 
wife; 'tis none of his own getting. Horns? 
Even so. Poor men alone ? No, no ; the noblest 
deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the 
single man therefore blessed? No; as a walled 
town is more worthier than a village, so is the fore- 60 
head of a married man more honourable than the 
bare brow of a bachelor ; and by how much defence 
is better than no skill, by so much is a horn more 
precious than to want. Here comes Sir Oliver. 

Enter Sir Oliver Martext 

Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met: will you 
dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go 
with you to your chapel ? 

Sir Oli. Is there none here to give the woman ? 

Touch. I will not take her on gift of any man. 

Sir Oli. Truly, she must be given, or the 70 
marriage is not lawful. 

I Jaq. [Advancing] Proceed, proceed: I'll give 
her. 

Touch. Good even, good Master What-ye- 
call 't ; how do you, sir ? You are very well met : 



60 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

God 'ild you for your last company : I am very 
glad to see you : even a toy in hand here, sir : 
nay, pray be covered. 

Jaq. Will you be married, motley ? 

Touch. As the ox has his bow, sir, the horse 80 
his curb and the falcon her bells, so man hath his 
desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would 
be nibbling. 

Jaq. And will you, being a man of your breed- 
ing, be married under a bush like a beggar? Get 
you to church, and have a good priest that can 
tell you what marriage is : this fellow will but 
join you together as they join wainscot ; then one 
of you will prove a shrunk panel, and, like green 
timber, warp, warp. 90 

Touch. [Aside] I am not in the mind but I 
were better to be married of him than of another : 
for he is not like to marry me well ; and not being 
well married, it will be a good excuse for me here- 
after to leave my wife. 

Jaq. Go thou with me, and let me counsel 
thee. 

Touch. Come, sweet Audrey : 
Farewell, good Master Oliver ; not, — 100 

O sweet Oliver, 
O brave Oliver, 
Leave me not behind thee : 



but, — 



Wind away, 
Begone, I say, 
I will not to wedding with thee. 

[Exeunt Jaques, Touchstone and Audrey. 



Scene Foub] AS YOU LIKE IT 61 

Sir Oli. "Tis no matter : ne'er a fantastical 
knave of them all shall flout me out of my calling. 

Exit. 
Scene IV — The forest 

Enter Rosalind and Celia 

Ros. Never talk to me : I will weep. 

Cel. Do, I prithee; but yet have the grace to 
consider that tears do not become a man. 

Ros. But have I not cause to weep ? 

Cel. As good cause as one would desire ; there- 
fore weep. 

Ros. His very hair is of the dissembling colour. 

Cel. Something browner than Judas's : marry, 
his kisses are Judas's own children. 10 

Ros. V faith, his hair is of a good colour. 

Cel. An excellent colour : your chestnut was 
ever the only colour. 

Ros. And his kissing is as full of sanctity as 
the touch of holy bread. 

Cel. He hath bought a pair of cast lips of 
Diana : a nun of winter's sisterhood kisses not 
more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in 
them. 

Ros. But why did he swear he would come 20 
this morning, and comes not ? 

Cel. Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him. 

Ros. Do you think so ? 

Cel. Yes ; I think he is not a pick-purse nor a 
horse-stealer, but for his verity in love, I do think 
him as concave as a covered goblet or a worm- 
eaten nut. 



62 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

Ros. Not true in love ? 
. Cel. Yes, when he is in ; but I think he is not in. 30 

Ros. You have heard him swear downright 
he was. 

Cel. " Was" is not " is" : besides, the oath of a 
lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster; 
they are both the confirmer of false reckonings. 
He attends here in the forest on the duke your 
father. 

Ros. I met the duke yesterday and had much 
question with him : he asked me of what parentage 
I was ; I told him, of as good as he ; so he laughed 40 
and let me go. But what talk we of fathers, when 
there is such a man as Orlando ? 

Cel. O, that's a brave man ! he writes brave 
verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths 
and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart 
the heart of his lover; as a puisny tilter, that 
spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff 
like a noble goose : but all's brave that youth 
mounts and folly guides. Who comes here ? 

Enter Corin 

Cor. Mistress and master, you have oft in- 
quired 50 
After the shepherd that complain'd of love, 
Who you saw sitting by me on the turf, 
Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess 
That was his mistress. 

Cel. Well, and what of him ? 

Cor. If you will see a pageant truly play'd, 
Between the pale complexion of true love 



Scene Five] AS YOU LIKE IT 63 

And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain, 
Go hence a little and I shall conduct you, 
If you will mark it. 

Ros. O, come, let us remove : 

The sight of lovers feedeth those in love. 60 

Bring us to this sight, and you shall say 
I'll prove a busy actor in their play. [Exeunt 

Scene V — Another part of the forest 
Enter Silvius and Phebe 

Sil. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, 

Phebe ; 
Say that you love me not, but say not so 
In bitterness. The common executioner, 
Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes 

hard, 
Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck 
But first begs pardon ; will you sterner be 
Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops ? 

Enter Rosalind, Celia, and Corin, behind 

Phe. I would not be thy executioner : 
I fly thee, for I would not injure thee. 
Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye : 10 

'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable, 
That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things, 
Who shut their coward gates on atomies, 
Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers ! 
Now I do frown on thee with all my heart ; 
And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill 

thee: 
Now counterfeit to swoon ; why now fall down ; 



64 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame, 

Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers ! 

Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee : 20 

Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains 

Some scar of it ; lean upon a rush, 

The cicatrice and capable impressure 

Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine 

eyes, 
Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not, 
Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes 
That can do hurt. 

Sil. O dear Phebe, 

If ever, — as that ever may be near, — 
You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy, 
Then shall you know the wounds invisible 30 

That love's keen arrows make. 

Phe. But till that time 

Come not thou near me : and when that time comes, 
Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not ; 
As till that time I shall not pity thee. 

Ros. And why, I pray you ? Who might be 
your mother, 
That you insult, exult, and all at once, 
Over the wretched? What though you have no 

beauty, — 
As, by my faith, I see no more in you 
Than without candle may go dark to bed — 
Must you be therefore proud and pitiless ? 40 

Why, what means this ? Why do you look on me ? 
I see no more in you than in the ordinary 
Of nature's sale-work. 'Od's my little life, 
I think she means to tangle my eyes too ! 



Scene Five] AS YOU LIKE IT 65 

No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it : 

'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair, 

Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream, 

That can entame my spirits to your worship. 

You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her, 

Like foggy south puffing with wind and rain ? 50 

You are a thousand times a properer man 

Than she a woman : 'tis such fools as you 

That makes the world full of ill-favoured children : 

'Tis not her glass, but you, that natters her ; 

And out of you she sees herself more proper 

Than any of her lineaments can show her. 

But mistress, know yourself : down on your knees, 

And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love : 

For I must tell you friendly in your ear, 

Sell when you can : you are not for all markets : 60 

Cry the man mercy ; love him ; take his offer : 

Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer. 

So take her to thee, shepherd : fare you well. 

Phe. Sweet youth, I pray you, chide a year 
together : 
I had rather hear you chide than this man woo. 

Ros. He's fallen in love with your foulness, 
and she'll fall in love with my anger. If it be so> 
as fast as she answers thee with frowning looks, 
I'll sauce her with bitter words. Why look you 
so upon me ? 70 

Phe. For no ill will I bear you. 

Ros. I pray you, do not fall in love with me, 
For I am falser than vows made in wine : 
Besides, I like you not. If you will know my 
house, 



66 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by. 
Will you go, sister ? Shepherd, ply her hard. 
Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better, 
And be not proud : though all the world could see 
None could be so abused in sight as he. so 

Come, to our flock. 

[Exeunt Rosalind, Celia, and Corin. 

Phe. Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of 
might. 
" Who ever loved that loved not at first sight ? " 

Sih Sweet Phebe, — 

Phe. Ha, what say'st thou, Silvius? 

Sil. Sweet Phebe, pity me. 

Phe. Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius. 

Sil. Wherever sorrow is, relief would be : 
If you do sorrow at my grief in love, 
By giving love your sorrow and my grief 
Were both extermined. 

Phe. Thou hast my love: is not that neigh- 
bourly ? 90 

Sil. I would have you. 

Phe. Why, that were covetousness. 

Silvius, the time was that I hated thee, 
And yet it is not that I bear thee love ; 
But since that thou canst talk of love so well, 
Thy company, which erst was irksome to me, 
I will endure, and I'll employ thee too : 
But do not look for further recompense 
Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd. 

Sil. So holy and so perfect is my love, 
And I in such a poverty of grace, 100 

That I shall think it is a most plenteous crop 



Scene Five] AS YOU LIKE IT 6*7 

To glean the broken ears after the man 

That the main harvest reaps : loose now and then 

A scatter'd smile, and that I'll live upon. 

Phe. Know'st thou the youth that spoke to 

me erewhile ? 
Sil. Not very well, but I have met him oft; 
And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds 
That the old carlot once was master of. 

Phe. Think not I love him, though I ask for 

him; 
'Tis but a peevish boy ; yet he talks well ; no 

But what care I for words ? yet words do well 
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear. 
It is a pretty youth : not very pretty : 
But, sure, he's proud, and yet his pride becomes 

him: 
He'll make a proper man : the best thing in him 
Is his complexion ; and faster than his tongue 
Did make offence his eye did heal it up. 
He is not very tall ; yet for his years he's tall : 
His leg is but so so ; and yet 'tis well : 
There was a pretty redness in his lip, 120 

A little riper and more lusty red 
Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the 

difference 
Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask. 
There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd 

him 
In parcels as I did, would have gone near 
To fall in love with him ; but, for my part, 
I love him not nor hate him not ; and yet 
I have more cause to hate him than to love him : 



68 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Foub 

For what had he to do to chide at me ? 

He said mine eyes were black and my hair black : 130 

And, now I am remember'd, scorn'd at me : 

I marvel why I answer' d not again : 

But that's all one : omittance is no quittance, 

I'll write to him a very taunting letter, 

And thou shalt bear it : wilt thou, Silvius ? 

Sil. Phebe, with all my heart. 

Phe. ' I'll write it straight ; 

The matter's in my head and in my heart : 
I will be bitter with him and passing short. 
Go with me, Silvius. [Exeunt. 



ACT IV 

Scene I — The forest 

Enter Rosalind, Celia, and Jaques 

Jaq. I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better 
acquainted with thee. 

Ros. They say you are a melancholy fellow. 

Jaq. I am so ; I do love it better than laughing. 

Ros. Those that are in extremity of either are 
abominable fellows and betray themselves to every 
modern censure worse than drunkards. 

Jaq. Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing. 

Ros. Why then, 'tis good to be a post. 

Jaq. I have neither the scholar's melancholy, 10 
which is emulation, nor the musician's, which is 
fantastical, nor the courtier's, which is proud, 
nor the soldier's, which is ambitious, nor the 



Scene One] AS YOU LIKE IT 69 

lawyer's, which is politic, nor the lady's, which is 
nice, nor the lover's, which is all these : but it is 
a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many 
simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed 
the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which 
my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous 
sadness. 20 

Ros. A traveller ! By my faith, you have great 
reason to be sad : I fear you have sold your own 
lands to see other men's ; then, to have seen much 
and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor 
hands. 

Jaq. Yes, I have gained my experience. 

Ros. And your experience makes you sad: 
I had rather have a fool to make me merry than 
experience to make me sad; and to travel for it 

too! 

Enter Orlando 

Orl. Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind ! 30 

Jaq. Nay, then, God be wi' you, an you talk 
in blank verse. [Exit. 

Ros. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you 
lisp and wear strange suits, disable all the benefits 
of your own country, be out of love with your 
nativity and almost chide God for making you that 
countenance you are, or I will scarce think you 
have swam in a gondola. Why, how now, Orlando ! 
where have you been all this while ? You a lover ! 
An you serve me such another trick, never come in 40 
my sight more. 

Orl. My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour 
of my promise. 



70 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Four 

Ros. Break an hour's promise in love ! He 
that will divide a minute into a thousand parts 
and break but a part of the thousandth part of 
a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of 
him that Cupid hath clapped him o' the shoulder, 
but I'll warrant him heart-whole. 

Orl. Pardon me, dear Rosalind. 50 

Ros. Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more 
in my sight : I had as lief be wooed of a snail. 

Orl. Of a snail ? 

Ros. Ay, of a snail ; for though he comes slowly, 
he carries his house on his head ; a better jointure, 
I think, than you make a woman : besides, he 
brings his destiny with him. 

Orl. What's that? 

Ros. Why, horns, which such as you are fain 
to be beholding to your wives for : but he comes 60 
armed in his fortune and prevents the slander of 
his wife. 

Orl. Virtue is no horn-maker: and my Rosa- 
lind is virtuous. 

Ros. And I am your Rosalind. 

Cel. It pleases him to call you so ; but he hath 
a Rosalind of a better leer than you. 

Ros. Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am 
in a holiday humour and like enough to consent. 
What would you say to me now, an I were your 70 
very very Rosalind ? 

Orl. I would kiss before I spoke. 

Ros. Nay, you were better speak first, and when 
you were gravelled for lack of matter, you might 
take occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when 



Scene One] AS YOU LIKE IT 71 

they are out, they will spit; and for lovers lack- 
ing — God warn us ! — matter, the cleanliest 
shift is to kiss. 

Orl. How if the kiss be denied? 

Ros. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there so 
begins new matter. 

Orl. Who could be out, being before his be- 
loved mistress ? 

Ros. Marry, that should you, if I were your 
mistress, or I should think my honesty ranker 
than my wit. 

Orl. What, of my suit ? 

Ros. Not out of your apparel, and yet out of 
your suit. Am not I your Rosalind? 

Orl. I take some joy to say you are, because 90 
I would be talking of her. 

Ros. Well in her person I say I will not have 
you. 

Orl. Then in mine own person I die. 

Ros. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor 
world is almost six thousand years old, and in all 
this time there was not any man died in his own 
person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had 
his brains dashed out with a Grecian club; yet 
he did what he could to die before, and he is one 
of the patterns of love. Leander, he would haveioo 
lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned 
nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night ; 
for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in 
the Hellespont and being taken with the cramp 
was drowned : and the foolish chroniclers of that 
age found it was " Hero of Sestos. " But these are 



n AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Four 

all lies : men have died from time to time and worms 
have eaten them, but not for love. 

Orl. I would not have my right Rosalind of 
this mind, for, I protest her frown might kill me. no 

Ros. By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But 
come, now I will be your Rosalind in a more com- 
ing-on disposition, and ask me what you will, I 
will grant it. 

Orl. Then love me, Rosalind. 

Ros. Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays 
and all. 

Orl. And wilt thou have me ? 

Ros. Ay, and twenty such. 

Orl. What sayest thou ? 120 

Ros. Are you not good ? 

Orl. I hope so. 

Ros. Why, then, can one desire too much of a 
good thing? Come, sister, you shall be the priest 
and marry us. Give me your hand, Orlando. 
What do you say, sister ? 

Orl. Pray thee, marry us. 

Cel. I cannot say the words. 

Ros. You must begin, " Will you, Orlando — " 

Cel. Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wifei30 
this Rosalind ? 

Orl. I will. 

Ros. Ay, but when ? 

Orl. Why now ; as fast as she can marry us. 

Ros. Then you must say " I take thee, Rosa- 
lind, for wife. " 

Orl. I take thee, Rosalind, for wife. 

Ros. I might ask you for your commission; 



Scene One] AS YOU LIKE IT 73 

but I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband : 
there's a girl goes before the priest ; and certainly 140 
a woman's thought runs before her actions. 

Orl. So do all thoughts ; they are winged. 

Ros. Now tell how long you would have her 
after you have possessed her. 

Orl. For ever and a day. 

Ros. Say " a day, " without the " ever. " No, no, 
Orlando; men are April when they woo, Decem- 
ber when they wed : maids are May when they 
are maids, but the sky changes when they are 
wives. I will be more jealous of thee than ai50 
Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen, more clamorous 
than a parrot against rain, more new-fangled than 
an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey : 
I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, 
and I will do that when you are disposed to be 
merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when 
thou art inclined to sleep. 

Orl. But will my Rosalind do so ? 

Ros. By my life, she will do as I do. 

Orl. O, but she is wise. 160 

Ros. Or else she could not have the wit to do 
this : the wiser, the waywarder : make the doors 
upon a woman's wit and it will out at the case- 
ment ; shut that and 'twill out at the key-hole ; stop 
that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney. 

Orl. A man that had a wife with such a wit, 
he might say "Wit, whither wilt?" 

Ros. Nay, you might keep that check for it 
till you met your wife's wit going to your neigh- 170 
hour's bed. 



74 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Four 

Orl. And what wit could wit have to excuse 

that? 

Ros. Marry, to say she came to seek you there. 
You shall never take her without her answer, 
unless you take her without her tongue. O, that 
woman that cannot make her fault her husband's 
occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, 
for she will breed it like a fool ! 

Orl. For these two hours, Rosalind, I williso 

leave thee. 

Ros. Alas! dear love, I cannot lack thee two 

hours. 

Orl. I must attend the duke at dinner: by 
two o'clock I will be with thee again. 

Ros. Ay, go your ways, go your ways ; I knew 
what you would prove: my friends told me as 
much, and I thought no less : that nattering tongue 
of yours won me : 'tis but one cast away, and so, 
come, death ! Two o'clock is your hour ? 190 

Orl. Ay, sweet Rosalind. 

Ros. By my troth, and in good earnest, and 
so God mend me, and by all pretty oaths that 
are not dangerous, if you break one jot of your 
promise or come one minute behind your hour, 
I will think you the most pathetical break-promise 
and the most hollow lover and the most unworthy 
of her you call Rosalind that may be chosen out 
of the gross band of the unfaithful: therefore 
beware my censure and keep your promise. 200 

Orl. With no less religion than if thou wert 
indeed my Rosalind : so adieu. 

Ros. Well, Time is the old justice that 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 75 

examines all such offenders, and let Time try: 
adieu. [Exit Orlando. 

Cel. You have simply misused our sex in your 
love-prate : we must have your doublet and hose 
plucked over your head, and show the world what 
the bird hath done to her own nest. 

Ros. O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, 
that thou didst know how many fathom deep 1 210 
am in love ! But it cannot be sounded : my 
affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay 
of Portugal. 

Cel. Or rather, bottomless, that as fast as you 
pour affection in, it runs out. 

Ros. No, that same wicked bastard of Venus 
that was begot of thought, conceived of spleen 
and born of madness, that blind rascally boy that 
abuses every one's eyes because his own are out, 
let him be judge how deep I am in love. I'll tell 220 
thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Or- 
lando : I'll go find a shadow and sigh till he come. 

Cel. And I'll sleep. [Exeunt. 

Scene II — The forest 
Enter Jaques, Lords, and Foresters 

Jaq. Which is he that killed the deer ? 

A Lord. Sir, it was I. 

Jaq. Let's present him to the duke, like a 
Roman conqueror; and it would do well to set 
the deer's horns upon his head, for a branch of 
victory. Have you no song, forester, for this 
purpose ? 



76 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Four 

For. Yes, sir. 

Jaq. Sing it : 'tis no matter how it be in tune, 
so it make noise enough. 10 

Song 
For. What shall he have that kill'd the deer ? 
His leather skin and horns to wear. 
Then sing him home ; 

[The rest shall bear this burden. 
Take thou no scorn to wear the horn; 
It was a crest ere thou wast born : 
Thy father's father wore it, 
And thy father bore it : 
The horn, the horn, the lusty horn 
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn. [Exeunt. 

Scene III — The forest 
Enter Rosalind and Celia 

Ros. How say you now? Is it not past two 
o'clock ? and here much Orlando ! 

Cel. I warrant you, with pure love and troubled 
brain, he hath ta'en his bow and arrows and is 
gone forth — to sleep. Look, who comes here. 

Enter Silvius 
Sil. My errand is to you, fair youth ; 
My gentle Phebe bid me give you this : 
I know not the contents ; but, as I guess 
By the stern brow and waspish action 
Which she did use as she was writing of it, id 

It bears an angry tenour : pardon me ; 
I am but as a guiltless messenger. 



Scene Three] AS YOU LIKE IT 77 

Ros. Patience herself would startle at this 
letter 
And play the swaggerer ; bear this, bear all : 
She says I am not fair, that I lack manners ; 
She calls me proud, and that she could not love 

me, 
Were man as rare as phoenix. 'Od's my will ! 
Her love is not the hare that I do hunt : 
Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well, 
This is a letter of your own device. 20 

Sil. No, I protest, I know not the contents : 
Phebe did write it. 

Ros. Come, come, you are a fool 

And turn'd into the extremity of love. 
I saw her hand : she has a leathern hand, 
A freestone-colour'd hand ; I verily did think 
That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands : ■ 
She has a huswife's hand ; but that's no matter : 
I say she never did invent this letter ; 
This is a man's invention and his hand. 

Sil. Sure, it is hers. 30 

Ros. Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style, 
A style for challengers ; why, she defies me, 
Like Turk to Christian : women's gentle brain 
Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention, 
Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect 
Than in their countenance. Will you hear the 
letter? 

Sil. So please you, for I never heard it yet ; 
Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty. 

Ros. She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant 
writes. [Reads. 



78 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Four 

Art thou god to shepherd turn'd, 40 

That a maiden's heart hath burn'd ? 
Can a woman rail thus ? 
Sil. Call you this railing ? 
Ros. [Reads] 

Why, thy godhead laid apart, - 

Warr'st thou with a woman's heart ? 
Did you ever hear such railing? 

Whiles the eye of man did woo me, 

That could do no vengeance to me. 
Meaning me a beast. 

If the scorn of your bright eyne so 

Have power to raise such love in mine, 

Alack, in me what strange effect 

Would they work in mild aspect ! 

Whiles you chid me, I did love ; 

How then might your prayers move ! 

He that brings this love to thee 

Little knows this love in me : 

And by him seal up thy mind ; 

Whether that thy youth and kind 

Will the faithful offer take 60 

Of me and all that I can make ; 

Or else by him my love deny. 

And then I'll study how to die. 
Sil. Call you this chiding ? 
Cel. Alas, poor shepherd ! 

Ros. Do you pity him? no, he deserves no 
pity. Wilt thou love such a woman? What, to 
make thee an instrument and play false strains 
upon thee ! not to be endured ! Well, go your way 
to her, for I see love hath made thee a tame snake, 70 



Scene Theee] AS YOU LIKE IT 79 

and say this to her ; that if she love me, I charge 
her to love thee ; if she will not, I will never have 
her unless thou entreat for her. If you be a true 
lover, hence, and not a word; for here comes 
more company. [Exit Silvius. 

Enter Oliver 

OIL Good-morrow, fair ones: pray you, if 
you know, 
Where in the purlieus of this forest stands 
A sheep-cote fenced about with olive trees ? 

Cel. West of this place, down in the neighbour 
bottom : 
The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream so 

Left on your right hand brings you to the place. 
But at this hour the house doth keep itself ; 
There's none within. 

Oli. If that an eye may profit by a tongue, 
Then should I know you by description ; 
Such garments and such years : " The boy is fair, 
Of female favour, and bestows himself 
Like a ripe sister : the woman low 
And browner than her brother." Are not you 
The owner of the house I did enquire for ? 90 

Cel. It is no boast, being ask'd, to say we are. 

Oli. Orlando doth commend him to you both, 
And to that youth he calls his Rosalind 
He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he ? 

Ros. I am : what must we understand by this ? 

Oli. Some of my shame; if you will know of 
me 
What man I am, and how, and why, and where 



80 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Four 

This handkercher was stain'd. 

Cel. I pray you, tell it. 

OIL When last the young Orlando parted from 
you 
He left a promise to return again 100 

Within an hour, and pacing through the forest, 
Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy, 
Lo, what befel ! he threw his eye aside, 
And mark what object did present itself : 
Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age 
And high top bald with dry antiquity, 
A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair, 
Lay sleeping on his back : about his neck 
A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself, 
Who with her head nimble in threats approach'd 110 
The opening of his mouth ; but suddenly, 
Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself, 
And with indented glides did slip away 
Into a bush : under which bush's shade 
A lioness, with udders all drawn dry, 
Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch, 
When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis 
The royal disposition of that beast 
To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead : 
This seen, Orlando did approach the man 120 

And found it was his brother, his elder brother. 

Cel. O, I have heard him speak of that same 
brother ; 
And he did render him the most unnatural 
That lived amongst men. 

Oli. And well he might so do, 

For well I know he was unnatural. 



Scene Three] AS YOU LIKE IT 81 

Ros. But, to Orlando : did he leave him there, 
Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness? 

Oli. Twice did he turn his back and purposed 
so; 
But kindness, nobler ever than revenge, 
And nature, stronger than his just occasion, 130 

Made him give battle to the lioness, 
Who quickly fell before him ; in which hurtling 
From miserable slumber I awaked. 

Cel. Are you his brother ? 

Ros. Was't you he rescued ? 

Cel. Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill 
him? 

Oli. 'Twas I; but 'tis not I: I do not shame 
To tell you what I was, since my conversion 
So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am. 

Ros. But, for the bloody napkin ? 

Oli. By and by. 

When from the first to last betwixt us two 140 

Tears our recountments had most kindly bathed, 
As how I came into that desert place : — 
In brief, he led me to the gentle duke, 
Who gave me fresh array and entertainment, 
Committing me unto my brother's love ; 
Who led me instantly unto his cave, 
There stripp'd himself, and here upon his arm 
The lioness had torn some flesh away, 
Which all this while had bled ; and now he fainted 
And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind. 150 

Brief, I recover'd him, bound up his wound ; 
And, after some small space, being strong at heart, 
He sent me hither, stranger as I am, 



82 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Four 

To tell this story, that you might excuse 
His broken promise, and to give this napkin 
Dyed in his blood unto the shepherd youth 
That he in sport doth call his Rosalind. 

[Rosalind swoons. 

Cel. Why, how now, Ganymede ! sweet Gany- 
mede ! 

Oli. Many will swoon when they do look on 
blood. 

Cel. There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede ! 160 

01%. Look, he recovers. 

Ros. I would I were at home. 

Cel. We'll lead you thither. 

I pray you, will you take him by the arm ? 

Oli. Be of good cheer, youth : you a man ! you 
lack a man's heart. 

Ros. I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body 
would think this was well counterfeited ! I pray 
you, tell your brother how well I counterfeited. 
Heigh-ho ! 

Oli. This was not counterfeit: there is tooi70 
great testimony in your complexion that it was a 
passion of earnest. 

Ros. Counterfeit, I assure you. 

Oli. Well, then, take a good heart and coun- 
terfeit to be a man. 

Ros. So I do : but, i' faith, I should have been 
a woman by right. 

Cel. Come, you look paler and paler : pray 
you, draw homewards. Good sir, go with us. 

Oli. That will I, for I must bear answer back iso 
How you excuse my brother, Rosalind. 



Scene One] AS YOU LIKE IT 83 

Ros. I shall devise something : but, I pray 
you, commend my counterfeiting to him. Will 
you go ? [Exeunt. 



ACT V 

Scene I — The forest 
Enter Touchstone and Audrey 

Touch. We shall find a time, Audrey ; patience, 
gentle Audrey. 

Aud. Faith, the priest was good enough, for 
all the old gentleman's saying. 

Touch. A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a 
most vile Martext. But, Audrey, there is a youth 
here in the forest lays claim to you. 

Aud. Ay, I know who 'tis ; he hath no interest 
in me in the world : here comes the man you mean. 10 

Touch. It is meat and drink to me to see a 
clown : by my troth, we that have good wits have 
much to answer for; we shall be flouting; we 
cannot hold. 

Enter William 

Will. Good even, Audrey. 

Aud. God ye good even, William. 

Will. And good even to you sir. 

Touch. Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy 
head, cover thy head; nay, prithee, be covered. 
How old are you, friend ? 20 

Will. Five and twenty, sir. 

Touch. A ripe age. Is thy name William ? 



84 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Five 

Will. William, sir. 

Touch. A fair name. Wast born i' the forest 
here? 

Will. Ay, sir, I thank God. 

Touch. "Thank God"; a good answer. Art 
rich? 

Will. Faith, sir, so so. 

Touch. "So so" is good, very good, very excel- 
lent good ; and yet it is not ; it is but so so. Art 30 
thou wise ? 

Will. Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit. 

Touch. Why, thou sayest well. I do now re- 
member a saying, "The fool doth think he is wise, 
but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." 
The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire 
to eat a grape, would open his lips when he put 
it into his mouth; meaning thereby that grapes 
were made to eat and lips to open. You do love 
this maid ? 40 

Will. I do, sir. 

Touch. Give me your hand. Art thou learned ? 

Will. No, sir. 

Touch. Then learn this of me: to have, is to 
have; for it is a figure in rhetoric that drink, 
being poured out of a cup into a glass, by filling 
the one doth empty the other ; for all your writers 
do consent that ipse is he : now, you are not ipse, 
for I am he. 

Will. Which he, sir ? 50 

Touch. He, sir, that must marry this woman. 
Therefore, you clown, abandon, — which is in 
the vulgar leave, — the society, — which in the 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 85 

boorish is company, — of this female, — which in 
the common is woman ; which together is, abandon 
the society of this female, or, clown, thou perishest ; 
or, to thy better understanding, diest ; or, to wit, 
I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into 
death, thy liberty into bondage : I will deal in 
poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel; 60 
I will bandy with thee in faction ; I will o'er-run 
thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and 
fifty ways: therefore tremble, and depart. 

Aud. Do, good William. 

Will. God rest you merry, sir. [Exit. 

Enter Corin 

Cor. Our master and mistress seeks you ; come, 
away, away ! 

Touch. Trip, Audrey ! trip, Audrey ! I attend, 
I attend. [Exeunt 

Scene II — The forest 
Enter Orlando and Oliver 

Orl. Is't possible that on so little acquaintance 
you should like her? that but seeing you should 
love her ? and loving woo ? and, wooing, she should 
grant ? and will you per sever to enjoy her ? 

Oli. Neither call the giddiness of it in question, 
the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my 
sudden wooing, nor her sudden consenting; but 
say with me, I love Aliena; say with her that 
she loves me; consent with both that we may 10 
enjoy each other: it shall be to your good; for 






86 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Five 

my father's house and all the revenue that was 
old Sir Rowland's will I estate upon you, and here 
live and die a shepherd. 

Orl. You have my consent. Let your wedding 
be to-morrow : thither will I invite the duke and 
all's contented followers. Go you and prepare 
Aliena ; for look you, here comes my Rosalind. 

Enter Rosalind 

Ros. God save you, brother. 20 

Oli. And you, fair sister. [Exit. 

Ros. O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me 
to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf ! 

Orl. It is my arm. 

Ros. I thought thy heart had been wounded 
with the claws of a lion. 

Orl. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady. 

Ros. Did your brother tell you how I coun- 
terfeited to swoon when he showed me your hand- 
kercher ? 30 

Orl. Ay, and greater wonders than that. 

Ros. O, I know where you are : nay, 'tis true : 
there was never any thing so sudden but the 
fight of two rams and Caesar's thrasonical brag 
of " I came, saw, and overcame" : for your brother 
and my sister no sooner met but they looked, no 
sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but 
they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one 
another the reason, no sooner knew the reason but 
they sought the remedy; and in these degrees 40 
have they made a pair of stairs to marriage which 
they will climb incontinent : they are in the very 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 87 

wrath of love and they will together; clubs can- 
not part them. 

Orl. They shall be married to-morrow, and I 
will bid the duke to the nuptial. »But, O, how 
bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through 
another man's eyes! J By so much the more shall 
I to-morrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, 50 
by how much I shall think my brother happy in 
having what he wishes for. 

Ros. Why then, to-morrow I cannot serve your 
turn for Rosalind ? 

Orl. I can live no longer by thinking. 

Ros. I will weary you then no longer with idle 
talking. Know of me then, for now I speak to 
some purpose, that I know you are a gentleman 
of good conceit : I speak not this that you should 
bear a good opinion of my knowledge, insomuch 60 
I say I know you are; neither do I labour for a 
greater esteem than may in some little measure 
draw a belief from you, to do yourself good and 
not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that 
I can do strange things : I have, since I was three 
year old, conversed with a magician, most profound 
in his art and yet not damnable. If you do love 
Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries 
it out, when your brother marries Aliena, shall 70 
you marry her : I know into what straits of for- 
tune she is driven; and it is not impossible to 
me, if it appear not inconvenient to you, to set 
her before your eyes to-morrow human as she is 
and without any danger. 

Orl. Speakest thou in sober meanings? 



88 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Five 

Ros. By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, 
though I say I am a magician. Therefore, put 
you in your best array; bid your friends; for if 
you will be married to-morrow, you shall, and to 80 
Rosalind, if you will. 

Enter Silvius and Phebe 

Look, here comes a lover of mine and a lover of 
hers. 

Phe. Youth, you have done me much ungentle- 
ness, 
To show the letter that I writ to you. 

Ros. I care not if I have : it is my study 
To seem despiteful and ungentle to you : 
You are there followed by a faithful shepherd; 
Look upon him, love him ; he worships you. 

Phe. Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis 
to love. 

Sil. It is to be all made of sighs and tears ; 90 

And so am I for Phebe. 

Phe. And I for Ganymede. 

Orl. And I for Rosalind. 

Ros. And I for no woman. 

Sil. It is to be all made of faith and service : 
And so am I for Phebe. 

Phe. And I for Ganymede. 

Orl. And I for Rosalind. 

Ros. And I for no woman. 

Sil. It is to be all made of fantasy, 100 

All made of passion and all made of wishes. 
All adoration, duty, and observance, 
All humbleness, all patience and impatience, 



Scene Two] AS YOU LIKE IT 89 

All purity, all trial, all observance ; 
And so am I for Phebe. 

Phe. And so am I for Ganymede. 

Orl. And so am I for Rosalind. 

Ros. And so am I for no woman. 

Phe. If this be so, why blame you me to love 
you ? no 

Sil. If this be so, why blame you me to love 
you? 

Orl. If this be so, why blame you me to love 
you? 

Ros. Why do you speak too, " Why blame you 
me to love you"? 

Orl. To her that is not here, nor doth not hear. 

Ros. Pray you, no more of this; 'tis like the 
howling of Irish wolves against the moon. [To 
Sil.] I will help you, if I can: [To Phe.] I would 120 
love you, if I could. To-morrow meet me all 
together. [To Phe.] I will marry you, if ever I 
marry woman, and I'll be married to-morrow: 
[To Orl.] I will satisfy you, if ever I satisfied man, 
and you shall be married to-morrow : [To Sil.] 
I will content you, if what pleases you contents 
you, and you shall be married to-morrow. [To 
Orl.] As you love Rosalind, meet : [To Sil.] as you 
love Phebe, meet : and as I love no woman, I'll 130 
meet. So fare you well : I have left you commands. 

Sil I'll not fail, if I live. 

Phe. Nor I. 

Orl. Nor I. [Exeunt. 



90 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Five 

Scene III — The forest 
Enter Touchstone and Audrey 

Touch. To-morrow is the joyful day, Audrey; 
to-morrow will we be married. 

Aud. I do desire it with all my heart; and I 
hope it is no dishonest desire to desire to be a 
woman of the world. Here come two of the ban- 
ished duke's pages. 

Enter two Pages 
First Page. Well met, honest gentleman. 
Touch. By my troth, well met. Come, sit, sit, 
and a song. 

Second Page. We are for you : sit i' the middle. 10 
First Page. Shall we clap into 't roundly, with- 
out hawking or spitting or saying we are hoarse, 
which are the only prologues to a bad voice ? 

Second Page. I'faith, i'faith; and both in a 
tune, like two gipsies on a horse. 

Song 
It was a lover and his lass, 

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, 
That o'er the green corn-field did pass 

In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, 20 
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding : 
Sweet lovers love the spring. 

Between the acres of the rye, 

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, 
These pretty country folks would lie, 

In spring time, &c. 






Scene Four] AS YOU LIKE IT 91 

This carol they began that hour, 

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, 

How that a life was but a flower 

In spring time, &c. 30 

And therefore take the present time, 

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino ; 

For love is crowned with the prime 
In spring time, &c. 

Touch. Truly, young gentlemen, though there 
was no great matter in the ditty, yet the note was 
very untuneable. 

First Page. You are deceived, sir: we kept 
time, we lost not our time. 

Touch. By my troth, yes ; I count it but time 40 
lost to hear such a foolish song. God be wi' 
you ; and God mend your voices ! Come, Audrey. 

[Exeunt. 
Scene IV — The forest 

Enter Duke senior, Amiens, Jaques, Orlando, Oliver, 

and Celia 

Duke 8. Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the 
boy 
Can do all this that he hath promised ? 

Orl. I sometimes do believe, and sometimes 
do not ; 
As those that fear they hope, and know they fear. 

Enter Rosalind, Silvius, and Phebe 

Ros. Patience once more, whiles our compact 
is urged : 



92 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Five 

You say, if I bring in your Rosalind, 
You will bestow her on Orlando here ? 

Duke S. That would I, had I kingdoms to give 
with her. 

Ros. And you say, you will have her, when I 
bring her ? 

Orl. That would I, were I of all kingdoms king. 10 

Ros. You say, you'll marry me, if I be willing ? 

The. That will I, should I die the hour after. 

Ros. But if you do refuse to marry me, 
You'll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd ? 

Phe. So is the bargain. 

Ros. You say, that you'll have Phebe, if she 
will? 

Sil. Though to have her and death were both 
one thing. 

Ros. I have promised to make all this matter 
even. 
Keep you your word, O duke, to give your 

daughter ; 
You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter : 20 

Keep your word, Phebe, that you'll marry me, 
Or else refusing me, to wed this shepherd : 
Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll marry her, 
If she refuse me : and from hence I go, 
To make these doubts all even. 

[Exeunt Rosalind and Celia, 

Duke S. I do remember in this shepherd boy 
Some lively touches of my daughter's favour. 

Orl. My lord, the first time that I ever saw him 
Methought he was a brother to your daughter : 
But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born, 30 



Scene Four] AS YOU LIKE IT 93 

And hath been tutored in the rudiments 
Of many desperate studies by his uncle, 
Whom he reports to be a great magician, 
Obscured in the circle of this forest. 

Enter Touchstone and Audrey 

Jaq. There is, sure, another flood toward, and 
these couples are coming to the ark. Here comes 
a pair of very strange beasts, which in all tongues 
are called fools. 

Touch. Salutation and greeting to you all ! 

Jaq. Good my lord, bid him welcome: this 40 
is the motley-minded gentleman that I have so 
often met in the forest : he hath been a courtier, 
he swears. 

Touch. If any man doubt that, let him put 
me to my purgation. I have trod a measure; 
I have flattered a lady ; I have been politic with 
my friend, smooth with mine enemy; I have 
undone three tailors; I have had four quarrels, 
and like to have fought one. 

Jaq. And how was that ta'en up ? 50 

Touch. Faith, we met, and found the quarrel 
was upon the seventh cause. 

Jaq. How seventh cause? Good my lord, 
like this fellow. 

Duke S. I like him very well. 

Touch. God 'ild you, sir; I desire you of the 
like. I press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the 
country copulatives, to swear and to forswear; 
according as marriage binds and blood breaks: 
a poor virgin, sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but eo 



94 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Five 

mine own; a poor humour of mine, sir, to take 
that that no man else will : rich honesty dwells 
like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl 
in your foul oyster. 

Duke S. By my faith, he is very swift and 
sententious. 

Touch. According to the fool's bolt, sir, and 
such dulcet diseases. 

Jaq. But, for the seventh cause ; how did you 
find the quarrel on the seventh cause? 70 

Touch. Upon a lie seven times removed : — 
bear your body more seeming, Audrey : — as 
thus, sir. I did dislike the cut of a certain court- 
ier's beard : he sent me word, if I said his beard 
was not cut well, he was in the mind it was : this is 
called the Retort Courteous. If I sent him word 
again " it was not well cut, " he would send me word, 
he cut it to please himself : this is called the Quip 
Modest. If again "it was not well cut," he dis- 
abled my judgement : this is called the Reply 80 
Churlish. If again " it was not well cut, " he would 
answer, I spake not true : this is called the Reproof 
Valiant! If again " it was not well cut, " he would 
say, I lied : this is called the Countercheck Quarrel- 
some : and so to the Lie Circumstantial and the 
Lie Direct. 

Jaq. And how often did you say his beard was 
not well cut ? 

Touch. I durst go no further than the Lie 
Circumstantial, nor he durst not give me the 90 
Lie Direct; and so we measured swords and 
parted. 



Scene Four] AS YOU LIKE IT 95 

Jaq. Can you nominate in order now the 
degrees of the lie ? 

Touch. O, sir, we quarrel in print, by the 
book ; as you have books for good manners : I 
will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort 
Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the 
third, the Reply Churlish ; the fourth, the Reproof 
Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrel- 
some; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; theioo 
seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may 
avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid 
that too, with an If. I knew when seven justices 
could not take up a quarrel, but when the parties 
were met themselves, one of them thought but 
of an If, as, " If you said so, then I said so;" and 
they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If 
is the only peace-maker ; much virtue in If. 

Jaq. Is not this a rare fellow, my lord? he's 
as good at any thing and yet a fool. no 

Duke S. He uses his folly like a stalking-horse 
and under the presentation of that he shoots his 
wit. 

Enter Hymen, Rosalind, and Celia 
Still Music 

Hym. Then is there mirth in heaven, 
When earthly things made even 

Atone together. 
Good duke, receive thy daughter : 
Hymen from heaven brought her, 
Yea, brought her hither, 



96 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Five 

That thou mightst join her hand with his 120 
Whose heart within her bosom is. 
Ros. [To duke] To you I give myself, for I am 
yours. [To Orl.] To you I give myself, for I am 
yours. 

Duke S. If there be truth in sight, you are my 
daughter. 

Orl. If there be truth in sight, you are my 
Rosalind. 

Phe. If sight and shape be true, 
Why then, my love adieu ! 

Ros. I'll have no father, if you be not he : 
I'll have no husband, if you be not he : 
Nor ne'er wed woman, if you be not she. 130 

Hym. Peace, ho ! I bar confusion : 
'Tis I must make conclusion 

Of these most strange events : 
Here's eight that must take hands 
To join in Hymen's bands, 
If truth holds true contents. 
You and you no cross shall part : 
You and you are heart in heart : 
You to his love must accord, 
Or have a woman to your lord : 140 

You and you are sure together, 
As the winter to foul weather. 
Whiles a wedlock hymn we sing, 
Feed yourselves with questioning ; 
That reason wonder may diminish, 
How thus we met, and these things finish. 



Scene Four] AS YOU LIKE IT 97 

Song 

Wedding is great Juno's crown : 

O blessed bond of board and bed ! 
'Tis Hymen peoples every town ; 

High wedlock then be honoured : 150 

Honour, high honour and renown, 
To Hymen, god of every town ! 
Duke S. O my dear niece, welcome thou art 
to me ! 
Even daughter, welcome in no less degree. 

Phe. I will not eat my word, now thou art mine ; 
Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine. 

Enter Jaqtjes de Boys 

Jaq. de B. Let me have audience for a word or 
two : 
I am the second son of old Sir Rowland, 
That bring these tidings to this fair assembly. 
Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day 160 

Men of great worth resorted to this forest, 
Address'd a mighty power; which were on foot, 
In his own conduct, purposely to take 
His brother here and put him to the sword : 
And to the skirts of this wild wood he came : 
Where meeting with an old religious man, 
After some question with him, was converted 
Both from his enterprise and from the world, 
His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother, 
And all their lands restored to them again 170 

That were with him exiled. This to be true, 
I do engage my life. 



98 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Five 

Duke S. Welcome, young man ; 

Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding, 
To one his lands withheld, and to the other 
A land itself at large, a potent dukedom. 
First, in this forest let us do those ends 
That here were well begun and well begot : 
And after, every of this happy number 
That thus endured shrewd days and nights with 

us 
Shall share the good of our returned fortune, iso 

According to the measure of their states. 
Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity 
And fall into our rustic revelry. 
Play, music. And you, brides and bridegrooms 

all, 
With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall. 
Jaq. Sir, by your patience. If I heard you 
rightly, 
The duke hath put on a religious life 
And thrown into neglect the pompous court. 
Jaq. de B. He hath. 

Jaq. To him will I : out of these convertites 190 
There is much matter to be heard and learn'd. 
[To duke] You to your former honour I bequeath : 
Your patience and your virtue well deserves it : 
[To Orl.] You to a love that your true faith doth 

merit : 
[To Oli.] You to your land and love and great 

allies : 
[To Sil.] You to a long and well-deserved bed : 
[To Touch.] And you to wrangling; for thy lov- 
ing voyage 



Epilogue] AS YOU LIKE IT 99 

Is but for two months victualPd. So, to your 

pleasures : 
I am for other than for dancing measures. 

Duke S. Stay, Jaques, stay. 200 

Jaq. To see no pastime I : what you would 
have 
I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave. [Exit. 
Duke S. Proceed, proceed : we will begin these 
rites, 
As we do trust they'll end, in true delights. 

[A dance. 

Epilogue 

Ros. It is not the fashion to see the lady the 
epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to 
see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good 
wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play 
needs no epilogue; yet to good wine they do use 
good bushes, and good plays prove the better by 
the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in 
then, that am neither a good epilogue nor cannot 
insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play ! 
I am not furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg 10 
will not become me : my way is to conjure you ; 
and I'll begin with the women. I charge you, O 
women, for the love you bear to men, to like as 
much of this play as please you : and I charge 
you, O men, for the love you bear to women — 
as I perceive by your simpering, none of you hates 
them — that between you and the women the 
play may please. If I were a woman I would 
kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased 



100 AS YOU LIKE IT [Epilogue 

me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I 20 
defied not; and, I am sure, as many as have 
good beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, 
for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me 
farewell. [Exeunt. 



NOTES 

ABBREVIATIONS 

Abbott . . . Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar, 3d edition. 

F 1 First Folio (1623) of Shakespeare's plays. 

F 2 Second Folio (1632). 

F 3 Third Folio (1663 and 1664). 

F 4 Fourth Folio (1685). 

Ff The four Folios. 

Kellner . . . L. Kellner's Historical Outlines of English 

Syntax. 

Matzner . . . Eduard Matzner's Englische GrammatiJc. 

O. E Old English. 

M. E Middle English. 

E. E Elizabethan English. 

Md. E. . . . Modern English. 

For the meaning of words not given in these notes, the stu- 
dent is referred to the Glossary at the end of the volume. 

The numbering of the lines corresponds to that of the Globe 
edition. This applies also to the scenes in prose. 

The Title. The name As You Like It was doubtless sug- 
gested by a phrase in Lodge's preface, " If you like it, so ; and 
yet I will be yours in duty, if you be mine in favour." Its 
significance is sufficiently plain from the epilogue : " I charge 
you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of 
this play as please you : and I charge you, O men, for the love 
you bear to women ... that between you and the women 
the play may please." It is merely a playful challenge to the 
audience. 

Dramatis Person as. Jaques. Is " Jaques " a monosyllable 
or a dissyllable ? The answer depends upon another question, 
" Is the name French or English ? " As an English name it 
was common in Shakespeare's native county of Warwick, and 

101 



102 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

was pronounced and even written " Jakes." But in the only 
two places in this play where the metre is a guide we require 
a dissyllable. These are: ii. 1. 26, " The melancholy Ja-ques 
grieves at that," and v. 4. 200, " Stay, Ja-ques, stay." Now, 
if the name is French, Shakespeare would sound the final es, 
as he does in Parolles. And there can be no reasonable objec- 
tion to a French name in a play which already includes Amiens, 
Dennis, and Le Beau. 

The names Oliver and Orlando are from the legends of Charle- 
magne, and their use may have been suggested by Lodge's 
reference to the " twelve peers " of France. Orlando is an 
Italian form of Roland. Silvius and Phebe, the idyllic charac- 
ters, have conventional Latin names ; William and Audrey, 
the comic rustics, are plain J English. Corin stands halfway 
between them, and his name is a homely form of Virgil's Cory- 
don. Touchstone explains itself. 

Rosalind (Spanish = " rose-sweet ") is a favorite name in 
the literature of the period. Shakespeare has taken it, in this 
instance, from Lodge; but he has a Rosaline in Love's Labour's 
Lost, and another in Romeo and Juliet; and the name occurs 
also in Spenser, and in Marston. 

ACT I — SCENE 1 y 

It is the first care of every story-teller to let us know where 
we are. The novelist can do this directly, by means of descrip- 
tion and narration ; but such a course is not open to the drama- 
tist within the limits of his own art. He may indeed use a 
Prologue, like Quince in A Midsummer Night's Dream: 

" This man is Pyramus, if you would know ; 
This beauteous lady Thisby is certain." 

But the prologue is obviously no part of the play ; and Shake- 
speare generally discards it, and gives the required information 
by properly dramatic means. 

The dramatist's next care is to get his action under way. 
Shakespeare is sometimes content to secure these objects 
one at a time ; then the explanatory scene is merely a veiled, 
or represented, prologue. But as a rule he tries to combine 
both functions. In As You Like It Orlando's opening speech 
is of the nature of a represented prologue, yet so far starts 
the action as to leave him warm for the quarrel that follows. 



Scene One] NOTES 103 

The action thus fairly begun, the further explanations necessary 
are given incidentally in the course of the scene. 

For Orlando and Oliver the situation is created by the terms 
of their father's will. Here Shakespeare might have followed 
Lodge, and put before us the old knight's deathbed and his 
testamentary depositions. But such a scene would be too 
remote in time, and of too little interest in itself. By making 
Orlando pour out his wrongs to Adam, he secures another ad- 
vantage. We see not only how things stand between the 
brothers, but also — and this is equally important — the tem- 
per in which Orlando takes his situation. 

We are now enlightened about the hero. The entry of 
Charles gives Shakespeare the chance of showing a little more 
of his canvas, and of disclosing the outward circumstances of the 
heroine. Oliver greets the wrestler, and in a series of casual 
questions (for his mind is full of his recent discomfiture) asks 
the news at court. By this means we learn that the old duke 
has been banished by his brother, and now lives an exile in 
Arden ; while his daughter Rosalind stays on at court with 
her dear cousin Celia. Oliver and Charles then concert their 
plot, and prepare us for the wrestling scene. 

1-4. If the text is sound, we must take " it was bequeathed " 
and " (It was) charged " impersonally = " a thousand crowns 
were bequeathed to me," and " my brother was charged." 
But " it was charged my brother " is very harsh for " my 
brother was charged " ; and there is nothing to which we can 
refer " his blessing." The best and easiest emendation is 
"it was upon this fashion; he bequeathed," etc. He may 
easily have been overlooked before be. It is impossible to 
understand a subject to bequeathed; v. 4. 167 is not a real par- 
allel, for there a subject has been expressed two lines before. 

2. but poor a thousand crowns. On the analogy of so + ad- 
jective + article, we sometimes find a placed between the 
adjective and the noun, even when the former is qualified by 
other adverbs than so, e.g. by but in this case. (Kellner, § 462.) 
Cf. " With more tame a tongue," Measure for Measure, ii. 2. 
46. This condition is most important for understanding 
Oliver's character. See Introduction, p. xiv. 

4. on his blessing, on pain of losing his blessing. 

5. school. In Shakespeare = any place of instruction; 
here, a university. We still speak of a " school of medicine." 

14. riders dearly hired: supply are. 



104 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

! 

19. his countenance, his deportment towards me. Walker 
thinks that the word is here used for allowance, maintenance. 
But this sense of " countenance " is confined to legal writers. 
See Glossary for unusual words. 

20. bars me the place, debars me from the position. The 
preposition is often omitted after verbs of " ablation." 

21-22. mines my gentility with my education, undermines 
my gentle birth by neglecting my education. It is characteristic 
of Orlando that what he feels most is the neglect of his education. 

31. what make you here ? Oliver simply means " What are 
you doing here? " Orlando plays on the word in the sense of 
produce. 

35. Marry keeps up the punning. As an expletive it means 
" By (the Virgin) Mary." 

38-39. be naught awhile. This form of words was common, 
as a petty malediction, like " and be hanged to you." But 
Oliver also plays on the literal meaning — " Better be nothing 
than be marring yourself." 

41. What prodigal portion have I spent, what portion have 
I spent like a prodigal. The word which should qualify the 
action is transferred by anticipation to the object. This 
proleptic use of the adjective, as it is called (Gr. irp6\rjif/is = 
anticipation), is common in Shakespeare. The reference is 
to the parable of the Prodigal Son, Luke xv. 

46. him I am before. Him for he is fairly common after 
than and as. Here it may be due to attraction to whom under- 
stood. 

47-78. Throughout this dialogue, observe that Orlando is 
insisting not so much on his claims as a brother as on his rights 
as a gentleman. 

47. / know you are my eldest brother. Both words are 
emphatic. " Remember that though younger I am still your 
brother." 

47-48. in the gentle condition of blood, as becomes well- 
born brothers. Gentle, as often, connotes good birth; for 
blood in the sense of relationship, see note on ii. 3. 37. 

49. The courtesy of nations, the usage of the civilized world, 
jus gentium: viz. the law of primogeniture. 

50. tradition, customary usage. 

64. nearer to his reverence: the fact that you are my elder 
gives you more claim to the respect due to him. 

55-56. With the words " What, boy ! " Oliver strikes at 



Scene One] NOTES 105 

Orlando, who, stung by the taunt and the blow, seizes him by 
the throat. The meaning of " you are too young in this " is 
clear from the passage in Lodge by which it was suggested : 
" though I am the eldest by birth," says Saladin, " I am the 
youngest (i.e. least experienced) to perform any martial ex- 
ploits." 

58. villain. Oliver uses the word in its modern sense ; liter- 
ally it means a low-born person, a serf; and so it suits Orlando 
to take it. See Glossary for unusual words. 

59. Orlando feels that the insult to himself is an insult to his 
father. Filial piety is a trait which he shares with Rosalind. 

59. With this fierce punning cf. Gaunt's bitter play on his 
own name, Richard II, ii. 1. 73. Shakespeare often makes 
intense feeling express itself in biting jests. 

66-67. for your father's remembrance, for the sake of your 
father's memory. 

72. obscuring and hiding from me. These two words, one 
Latin and the other English, may mean exactly the same thing 
(bilingualism), like " acknowledge and confess " in the Prayer 
Book; " left and abandoned " (ii. 1. 50) ; " search and inqui- 
sition " (ii. 2. 20); "sanctified and holy" (ii. 3. 13). This 
kind of tautology dates from M. E., when French and English 
existed side by side, and the English term was needed to para- 
phrase the French. Or the meaning may be " obscuring (in 
me) and hiding from me." 

76. allottery, share. 

78-82. Observe the use of thou and you in this speech and 
throughout the whole scene. Thou (like du in German) was 
the pronoun of familiarity, and of the contempt it is said to 
breed ; you (like German Sie) of more ceremonious intercourse. 
But when a person is addressed with the formal sir, even in 
contempt, the pronoun is regularly you. (Abbott, §§ 231, 
232.) 

85. At Orlando's little attempt at peacemaking Oliver turns 
and vents his spleen on Adam, whose fault is to have witnessed 
his discomfiture. 

90. grow upon me, encroach upon me, " put out your 
horns," as we might say. The metaphor is continued in rank- 
ness, i.e. luxuriant growth, insolence. In Oliver's defence it 
should be noted that to give up the thousand crowns would 
be to confess himself in the wrong. His motive is not mere 
greed. 



106 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

91-92. no . . . neither. In early English two or more nega- 
tives may be used, simply to strengthen the negation. 

98. Again it should be noted in extenuation that Oliver 
acts in a passion. The chance of revenge flashes upon him, 
and, in Shakespeare's own words, " the sight of means to do 
ill deeds makes ill deeds done." In Lodge, the brothers con- 
tinue some time in amity, and the plot is concerted in cold 
blood. 

99. to-morrow. This is the first of those " short-time 
notes " which are scattered through the play. See Introduc- 
tion, p. xi. 

101. Good Monsieur Charles is itself a greeting, and there 
is no need to read (with Walker) " Good morrow, Monsieur 
Charles." 

103. Nor need we either make Oliver ask " what's the 
news," or Charles answer " there's no new news." Indeed, 
" there's no new news but the old news " is absurd. 

In this speech of the wrestler's, Shakespeare can hardly be 
said to conceal his art. Oliver already knows that there is a 
new court. After this, however, his inquiries about Rosalind 
follow naturally enough. 

112. the duke's daughter. Charles, as a court servant, calls 
the new duke simply " the duke." Perhaps he means to 
correct Oliver; at any rate Oliver in his next question speaks 
of the " old duke." 

113. By making the two dukes brothers (as in The Tempest), 
Shakespeare has refined on Lodge. He has duplicated the 
motive of fraternal enmity, and he has given the friendship of 
Rosalind and Celia a natural ground in their blood-relationship 
— nature's protest, as it were, against the feud between their 
fathers. 

115. died to stay, died from staying. Cf. v. 2. 110, " Why 
blame you me to love you," i.e. for loving you. Such infinitives 
are different cases of the gerund ( = manendo, ob amandum), 
with which to was originally used, in its locative sense; cf. 
Ger. zu = at, and our " to-day." 

119. Where will the old duke live? The use of the future, 
and Charles's " already," show that the Duke's flight is recent. 

121. Arden. The real forest of Ardennes lies partly in the 
French department of that name, but chiefly in Namur, Liege, 
and Luxemburg. But Shakespeare's forest is in fairyland — 
an English fairyland with glimpses of the classical Arcadia. 



Scene One] NOTES 107 

The name Arden also belonged to the wooded part of War- 
wickshire, and this too may have been in Shakespeare's mind. 

a many merry men. We still say " a few men." In older 
English the indefinite article was prefixed to other adjectives of 
number as well. Some think that many is a noun here = a 
many (i.e. menie = company) of merry men. 

124. fleet the time, make the time flit. Fleet is elsewhere 
intransitive. Cf. iii. 5. 5, " falls not the axe " = does not let 
fall ; and see note ad loc. 

125. the golden world, the Golden Age, i.e. the state of inno- 
cence from which, as the ancients thought, man had gradually 
degenerated. For world = state of things, cf. i. 2. 296 : 
" hereafter in a better world than this." This is in accordance 
with the etymology — O. E. wer-eld, age of men. 

129. a matter, a certain matter. 

134. shall acquit him, will have to acquit himself. Shall 
originally means to owe, and here retains the notion of compul- 
sion (Abbott, § 315). 

138. withal: an emphatic with, generally used at the end 
of a clause. Here it means with it. 

143. This is a theme which Shakespeare has often handled 
— e.g. King John, iii. 3 (John and Hubert plot Arthur's 
death) ; The Tempest, ii. 1 (Antonio and Sebastian plot 
Alonzo's death). Here there are no indirect suggestions and 
dark hints, but plain lying and an appeal to fear. The wrestler 
is an innocent accomplice. In Lodge, he is bribed " with rich 
rewards." 

148. it is: used of persons ; here in a tone of contempt. 

149. emulator: properly, a rival; used here in bad sense. 
See Glossary for unusual words. 

150. contriver, plotter, natural brother, i.e. brother by 
birth, with no idea of illegitimacy. 

152. / had as lief, I would as soon. For lief see Glossary. 

153. thou wert best: properly " (to) thee (it) were best." 
The impersonal construction has yielded to the personal. 
Cf. " if it please you " and " if you please " ; " it likes me " 
and " I like it " (Kellner, § 338). 

155. grace himself on thee, distinguish himself at your 
expense. 

161. brotherly, with the reserve natural to a brother. 

anatomize him as he is, expose his real nature. 

165. Til give him his payment, I'll pay him out, punish him. 



108 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

171. he, for him. The brevity of the expression disguises 
the bad grammar. 

172. noble device, lofty aspirations. 

173. enchantingly , as if it were the effect of an enchantment. 
Cf. " If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love 
him, I'll be hanged," 1 Henry IV, ii. 2. 19. 

174. in the heart of, beloved by. 

177. kindle, incite. 

178. Of this soliloquy Coleridge said in 1810, " This has 
always seemed to me one of the most un-Shakespearian speeches 
in all the genuine works of our poet." But in 1818 he wrote : 
" I dare not say that this seeming unnaturalness is not in the 
nature of an abused wilfulness, when united with a strong 
intellect." " An abused wilfulness " is the key to Oliver's 
character. 

SCENE 2 

This scene falls naturally into two parts : (1) the conversa- 
tion of the ladies with each other, with Touchstone, and with 
Le Beau ; (2) the wrestling match, and love at first sight. The 
first part is entirely of Shakespeare's invention. In Lodge, 
Rosalind's first appearance is among the ladies who are watch- 
ing the wrestling. But Shakespeare leaves Oliver's plot to 
work itself out, and carries us on to make the acquaintance of 
the heroine, that we may watch the wrestling by her side and 
see Orlando through her eyes. 

Rosalind's circumstances we already know; we are now to 
see how she bears them. She is not rebellious, like Orlando, but 
there is a cloud upon her spirits, due partly to her father's 
banishment, partly to the shadow cast by coming events. 
Celia's superior cheerfulness gives her the lead at first. Rosa- 
lind takes only a half-hearted share in bantering Touchstone. 
But when she learns that the successful wrestler is the son of 
her father's old friend her heart is touched, and Celia begins to 
slip into her natural place of the amused and interested ally. 

1. sweet my coz, a common inversion in addresses. Coz is 
short for cousin. 

3. would you yet I. I is not in the Ff. It was added in 
Rowe's second edition. 

5. learn, teach. For the origin of this common confusion, 
see Glossary. 



Scene Two] NOTES 109 

9. that I love thee. Shakespeare often omits the second 
preposition, when it can easily be supplied. 

11. so, provided that. In full, " were (subj.) it so that." 

13. if the truth . . . so righteously tempered. The expres- 
sion is a trifle tautologous : "if the composition of your love 
were really as perfect." To temper is in Shakespeare to bring 
into condition, by mixing (of drink), by melting (of wax), or 
by hardening (of metal). We still say " to temper mortar " 
as well as " to temper steel." 

13-14. so . . . as, for as . . . as, is common in Shake- 
speare, and still in vulgar language — "So merry as a grig " (Q). 

18. but I. When but and save are followed by the nominative 
they should be regarded as conjunctions, rather than preposi- 
tions, with the verb omitted (Kellner, § 207). 

28. Note the dramatic irony of the proposed " sport." Before 
the scene is over Rosalind is in love in earnest. Cf. Lodge : 
" She accounted love a toy . . . that as it was taken in with 
a gaze, might be shaken off with a wink." But Shakespeare's 
Rosalind would not talk so after she had seen Orlando. 

31. with safety of a pure blush. " With preservation of 
your modesty " is an abstract equivalent ; but Shakespeare 
thinks in images. 

34-35. the good housewife Fortune. " Good housewife " 
here only = good dame. In Antony and Cleopatra, iv. 15. 44, 
" that the false housewife Fortune break her wheel," it means 
hussy, which is merely a short form of the word. Fortune has 
a wheel, to signify, as Fluellen explains (Henry V, iii. 6. 35), 
" that she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and 
variation." Celia means to drive her into constancy with wit. 

38. blind woman. Walker thinks that we should print 
blindwoman, wiseman, etc. as single words, with the accent on 
the first syllable. Cf. " blindman's buff," and Bunyan's 
" Mr. Worldly Wiseman." In O. E. the adjective was more 
strongly accented than the noun after it. 

42. ill-favour edly . The adverb here expresses, not manner 
or degree, but state or condition; i.e. it has the force of an 
adjective. 

43. Shakespeare is fond (as Moberly points out) of thus 
contrasting Nature with the other powers that operate in life : 
with Fortune as here ; with Law and Custom as in i. 1. 50 ; with 
the Supernatural as in The Tempest, v. 243, " more than nature 
Was even conduct of"; and with Art, as in Winter's Tale, iv. 



110 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

4. 90, " over that art Which you say adds to nature, is an art 
That nature makes." 

Enter Touchstone. The Ff have " Enter Clowne," and 
his speeches throughout this scene are marked Clo. The 
change was made by Theobald in his second edition. Wright 
thinks that the early description of Touchstone as " the clown- 
ish fool " and " the roynish clown " hardly prepares us for the 
motley-minded gentleman of the later acts ; and Furness goes 
so far as to suggest that the Clown of this scene is not Touch- 
stone at all. But see Appendix B. 

46. Celia retorts, " Though Fortune cannot make our natu- 
ral gifts, she can mar them." 

52. natural, an idiot. The word still has this sense in 
Scotch. Touchstone is of course no " natural," but it suits 
Rosalind's punning wit to call him so. If she speaks of his 
" dulness " here, she calls him a " dull fool " in iii. 2. 112, even 
when he has turned squire of dames. 

65. perceiving. F 1 has perceiveth. We must either cor- 
rect as in the text, with F 2, or read " and hath." 

59. An allusion to the saying "Wit, whither wilt?" Cf. 
iv. 1. 168. 

60. Mistress: improperly used by Touchstone in address- 
ing princesses. Costard makes the same blunder (Love's 
Labour's Lost, iv. 1. 49). 

89. In F 1 this speech is given to Rosalind. See Appendix B. 

honour him enough. So F 1, and this makes good sense : 
" My father's love is enough to put him beyond your satire." 
Many editors read " honour him : enough ! " (Hanmer). 

91. taxation, satire ; cf . ii. 7. 86, and see Glossary. 

95. Mr. Fleay sees in this a reference to the burning of 
satirical books by public authority, June 1, 1599. 

100-101. Cf. Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2. 315, where Biron 
says of Boyet : 

" This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease, 
And utters it again when God doth please." 

As Rosaline in Love's Labour's Lost is in a way a pale sketch 
of Rosalind, so Le Beau reminds us of Boyet; and we may 
have here an unconscious reminiscence of the earlier play. 
" I always liked Le Beau," says Lady Martin ; and, though 
the ladies make fun of the formal courtier, his advice to Orlando 
at the end of the scene shows sense and good feeling. 



Scene Two] NOTES 111 

105. Bon jour. Such touches (cf. i. 1. 101) remind us that 
the scene is in France. 

108. Celia outdoes Le Beau in his own style. Color is 
hind, as in iii. 2. 435, " cattle of this colour," and in Twelfth 
Night, ii. 3. 182, " a horse of that colour." Le Beau might 
have understood the word in such a connection, but Celia's 
use of it puzzles him. Collier thought that Le Beau pro- 
nounces sport affectedly spot; hence Celia's retort. But the 
above explanation is satisfactory. 

112. laid on with a trowel, clumsily done, dabbed on. 

114. Rosalind's puns must not be judged by modern stand- 
ards of taste. 

115. amaze, bewilder. The word (a, intensive : maze) 
means originally to stun, to stupefy. In E. E. it is used of 
any confusing emotion. We have confined it to the emotion 
of strong surprise. 

121. is to do, is to be done. In O. E. the infinitive is indif- 
ferent with regard to voice, and is regularly used in the active 
when there is action without a subject. In Shakespeare this 
use of the active infinitive is especially common in this phrase ; 
cf. " What's to do? " Twelfth Night, iii. 3. 38; and our " This 
house to let " (Kellner, §§ 364, 365). 

124. There comes. When the verb comes first, and the 
subject is as yet undetermined, the singular is the rule ; espe- 
cially with " There is " (Abbott, § 335). 

131-132. As it stands, the only point of Rosalind's speech is 
a poor pun on presence and presents. To better this, Farmer 
proposed to give the words " with bills on their necks " to 
Le Beau. " Bills " will then mean forest-bills, i.e. cutting 
instruments ; cf . Lodge. " Rosader came pacing towards them 
with his forest-bill on his neck." This would give us two 
puns instead of one. " Be it known unto all men, etc." is a 
translation of Noverint universi per proesentes, the usual pre- 
amble of bills. Nash (1589) speaks of those ( ? Shakespeare) 
" who had left the trade of noverint, whereto they were 
born, for handfuls of tragical speeches." Cf. iii. 1. 17, and 
note ad loc. 

133. By describing the wrestling instead of representing it, 
Shakespeare reserves our interest for the final bout; and per- 
haps, though he has no objection to plenty of blood in his 
tragedies, he felt that the scene would be too harrowing for 
the occasion. The rib-breaking reminds us of Gamelyn : 



112 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

" And kast him on the left syde, that three ribbes to-brake, 
And therto his oon arm, that yaf a gret crake." (245-6.) 

Lodge's wrestler kills his men outright. See Appendix A. 

134. which Charles. Which, being originally an adjective 
(E.E. hwilc = who-like), is used with the repeated antecedent, 
for greater exactness (Abbott, § 269). 

141. So far Rosalind has been the wit. The woman now 
begins to come out. 

149. is there any else longs. Any = anybody. This con- 
struction, explained by Abbott (§ 244) as omission of the 
relative, is really a relic of an earlier construction out of which 
the relative clause grew. This is the so-called dirb koipov 
construction of one subject with two predicates. (Kellner, 
§§ 111, 274.) 

149-150. see this . . . music. See is used of perception in 
general. Cf. " When ye see the south wind blow." 

150. broken music is part music, arranged for different 
instruments > < consort-music, for sets of the same instru- 
ment. Cf . Bacon, Sylva, § 278 : " In that music which we 
call broken-music or consort-music, some consorts of instru- 
ments are sweeter than others." Shakespeare has the same 
pun again in Henry V, v. 2. 263, and in Troilus and Cressida, 
iii. 1. 52. 

158. " Let him take the risk of his boldness." The Duke's 
first words, and his contemptuous " crept," mark the choleric 
tyrant. 

162-163. successfully. See i. 2. 42. 

164-165. are you crept. In O. E. be was used with intransi- 
tive, have with transitive verbs. Shakespeare commonly 
uses be with intransitive verbs of motion; so do we still with 
come and go. 

169. such odds in the man. In Shakespeare odds means 
superiority quite as often as inequality. There is no need, 
therefore, to read men. 

175-176. princess' call (so Dyce). Ff have princesse cals; but 
Orlando says " I attend them," and though it was Celia who 
gave the order, it is Rosalind who asks the question. Most 
editors read princesses call, with Theobald. It is allowed 
that s may be omitted after sibilants in the possessive sing. ; 
Konig (p. 17) gives sixteen instances of plurals in which, though 
printed (in the Ff), it is not pronounced; and (p. 16) three 
in which it is not printed. These are " Antipholus " (Comedy 



Scene Two] NOTES 113 

of Errors, v. 1. 357) : " mistress " {Taming of the Shrew, i. 2. 
277) ; and " princess " {The Tempest, i. 2. 173). Add " mistress " 
(pi.) in Lover s Complaint, 142. This is a relic of M. E. usage. 
Cf. also Abbott, § 471. 

185-186. The emphasis is on saw and knew: " If you used 
your senses, you would see." There is no need to read our 
eyes . . . our judgement. 

192. therefore, on that account. 

193. might: more respectful than may. So we say ** we 
wished to ask," when we mean " we wish," putting it as if our 
hearer's mind were already made up. 

195. wherein. The apparent antecedent would be thoughts; 
but, after " guilty," in is always used of the crime; we must 
therefore supply therein, as antecedent, to deny = in deny- 
ing. So the sentence means : " Punish me not for what I 
own I am guilty of, viz. of denying, etc." The sentence is 
here punctuated accordingly. 

much. The use of much as adverb with adjective probably 
comes from its use with participles, where it represents the 
instrumental case (Herford). 

203. only goes with, fill and would now be placed next to it. 
Shakespeare transposes adverbs freely (for emphasis), espe- 
cially adverbs of limitation, such as only, but. (Abbott, § 420.) 
The whole of this dialogue between Orlando and the ladies is 
of Shakespeare's own invention. It helps to engage their 
interest (and ours) in the hero, and to show the real spirit — 
far from that of the gamester — in which he has entered the 
lists. We never sympathize with him more than at this last 
confession of quiet hopelessness. 

212. These lines accentuate the difference between Orlando's 
modesty and the "haughty heart" that "goeth before a fall." 

220. An was suggested by Theobald. The printer, say 
Clark and Wright, may have mistaken Orl. And for Orland. 
For the spelling and, see Glossary. 

221. ways: not the plural but genitive singular in locative 
sense. Cf. German weges. The genitive of space is much 
less common in O. E. than the genitive of time. 

222. Hercules, a demi-god of fabulous strength in classical 
mythology. 

224. Wrestle; 227. Shout. The imperative form of these 
stage directions seems to show that the play was printed from 
an acting copy. See Appendix B. 



114 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

232. In Lodge the wrestler is killed outright. 

237-243. " When they knew him to be the youngest son of 
Sir John of Bordeaux, the King rose from his seat and em- 
braced him " (Lodge). This slight change is a great gain 
(1) in dramatic 'point — Orlando has not yet reached the nadir 
of his fortunes ; (2) in dramatic propriety — it affords a reason 
for Orlando's sudden retirement from the court, and furnishes 
a double bond between him and Rosalind, the bond of sym- 
pathy and the bond of hereditary friendship ; (3) in charac- 
terization — it gives a new color to the action of the Duke in 
banishing Oliver (see further on iii. 1), and stirs his smoulder- 
ing temper into the blaze which results in the banishment of 
Rosalind. 

Note how the Duke recurs in the last line of his speech to the 
thought of the first. 

239. still, always. 

240. shouldst. Shakespeare uses should even in the con- 
clusion of a condition, with no notion of duty. 

245. His youngest son — , Orlando breaks off. 

calling, title ; not elsewhere used in this sense. 

254. sticks me at heart. The two meanings of "stick" 
(1) stab, (2) cleave, are not far apart in Shakespeare. The 
question here is rather one of construction — " stabs me 
(ace.) to the heart;" or " cleaves to my heart," in which case 
me is dative. But for this Shakespeare would probably have 
said " sticks in my heart." 

256. Abbott | scans : 

But just' | ly as' | you have' | exceed" | all pro' | mise. 
His instances, however, do not support such a slurring of -ed 
after -d, and I prefer to scan (with Konig) : 

But just' | ly as' | you've ex' | ceeded' | all pro' | mise. 
See Appendix C, p. 181. 

257. shall be, will certainly be. Cf. i. 1. 143. 

Dr. Johnson complains that the ladies give away their 
hearts too easily. Three times in this single play Shakespeare 
has treated the theme of love at first sight, handling it each 
time in a way that gives some notion of his infinite variety. 
In Rosalind's case generous sympathy leads up to love. Note 
her shy, ambiguous confession and lingering withdrawal. 
Orlando, like the ideal lover he is, is simply tongue-tied. His 
prototype in the novel shows much more self-possession : he 
steps into a tent and acknowledges his devotion in a sonnet. 



Scene Two] NOTES 115 

258. out of suits with fortune, out of fortune's suite, i.e. 
service. Schmidt compares the feudal term suit and service. 

259. could give, could find it in her heart to give. 

263. quintain. The quintain in its simplest form was a 
post with revolving arms. At this the tilter ran, his object 
being to strike one arm and dodge the swing of the other. 
Later it was made in the form of a Turk or Saracen, with a 
shield on his left arm and a sword in his right hand. This is 
the form that Orlando has in mind : " I stand like a stock, a man 
of wood." For derivation, see Glossary. 

267. Celia slily repeats Rosalind's " Shall we go, coz ? " of 
half a dozen lines before. 

268. Have with you, come along. This use of have in such 
phrases as " have with," " have at," " have after," etc., has 
not been explained. It dates from M. E., where it is used as 
a colloquialism (Matzner, i. 386). From Lodge's expression, 
*' I will have amongst you with my sword," we should infer an 
ellipse of " I will." But this full form is not found in M. E. 

273. Le Beau is formal, even in doing a kindness. 
276. condition, state of mind, disposition. 

278. humorous. In ancient physiology, the " humors " 
are the four essential fluids of the body : bile, blood, black- 
bile, and phlegm, corresponding to the four elements : fire, air, 
earth, and water. The mixture of these humors produced 
the temperament (/cpacts, mixture) of a man, which was 
choleric, sanguine, melancholy, or phlegmatic according to the 
humor which predominated. A humorous man is one who is 
at the mercy of his moods, whatever they may be. In the 
Duke's case, choler seems to be the predominant humor, but 
Le Beau is intentionally vague. See also iii. 2. 439. 

279. than I to speak of. In Shakespeare, (as in M. E.) 
we sometimes find the nominative and infinitive where we 
should expect the accusative, after substantives, adjectives, 
and impersonal verbs. Cf. Comedy of Errors, i. 1. 33. " A 
heavier task could not have been imposed Than I to speak my 
griefs unspeakable " = " than that I should speak." So here, 
" than I to speak of " = " than that I should speak of it." 
(Kellner, § 406.) 

284. lesser: so Spedding. Ff have taller. See Appendix B. 

289-295. There was no hint of this in what Charles told 
Oliver; but Le Beau belongs to the inner circle at the court. 
This explanation is thrown forward here to prepare us for the 



116 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

Duke's outburst in the next scene. Doubtless Le Beau gives 
the true reason for his conduct. Lodge's Torismond is a far 
more politic tyrant. He fears that one of the peers may marry 
Rosalind and aspire to the crown. 

fe 299. from the smoke into the smother, out of the frying-pan 
into the fire. 

SCENE 3 

This scene falls into three parts : (1) the prose dialogue be- 
tween the ladies, 11. 1-41 ; (2) the sentence of banishment, 
11. 42-91 ; (3) the preparations for flight, 1. 92 to end. 

The first part is all Shakespeare's own. His object (as in 
i. 2) is to let us see the mind of the heroine, and to show how 
far the bud of love which peeped out in the wrestling scene is 
on its way to flower. Le Beau's information (i. 2. 289-295) 
throws a tinge of dramatic irony over this light talk. We 
know the fate that hangs over Rosalind, but she (as her 
amazed " Me, uncle ? " shows) has no suspicion of it. Her 
sighs are all for Orlando now, as in Act i, sc. 2 they were for 
her father. (This is the real reason for preferring the old read- 
ing in 1. 11.) 

Observe that Rosalind and Celia talk prose when alone. 
LI. 92-140 are the exception which proves the rule. With 
the entrance of the Duke the feeling rises to the pitch of verse; 
when he has left, Rosalind and Celia continue to use verse 
because the excitement of Rosalind's doom is still upon them. 

I. Cupid. The gocj of love in classical mythology. Observe 
the number of these classical allusions throughout the play, 
and especially in the conversation of the ladies. Hercules 
(i. 2. 222), Cupid and Juno in this scene, Jupiter (ii. 4. 1), 
Pythagoras (iii. 2. 187), Troilus, Hero and Leander (iv. 1. 97). 
Some of this is no doubt due to Lodge ; but in the main it be- 
tokens the immense influence of Ovid. Note that Celia, who is 
fancy-free, still does most of the talking. 

6. reasons, talk. Rosalind plays on the word. 

II. my child s father : changed by Rowe (and Coleridge) to 
my fathers child. But see introductory note, and the warn- 
ing on i. 2. 114. 

12. working-day world, everyday state of things; also 
" work-a-day." 

16. coat, petticoat. Shakespeare does not use it elsewhere 
in this sense ; but it is common enough in ballad poetry. 



Scene Three] NOTES 117 

19. cry " hem " and have him. A proverb ? or a game ? 
The pun is bettered by pronouncing ha' him: cf. Taming of the 
Shrew, v. 2. 181, where " ha't " rhymes with " Kate." 

27. on such a sudden. Shakespeare has " on a sudden " 
elsewhere, but not " on such a sudden." For adjectives used 
as nouns, cf. Abbott, § 5. 

32. by this kind of chase, by this way of following the argu- 
ment. The word " dear " may (intentionally or unintention- 
ally) have suggested the metaphor. Cf. the pun in Merry 
Wives, v. 5. 122, " I will always count you for my deer." 

34. dearly, excessively. Cf. " my dearest foe," Hamlet, 
i. 2. 182. The word is used in E. E. " of anything that touches 
us nearly, in love or hate, joy or sorrow " (Wright) ; and, in 
fact, of anything excessive in its kind ; cf . " your dearest 
speed," I Henry IV, v. 5. 36. 

36. We must not analyze these negatives too curiously. 
" Why should I not ? " — hate him or not hate him. " Doth 
he not deserve well ? " to be hated, as the son of my father's 
enemy, or (absolutely) " are not his deserts high? " Rosalind 
takes as many of the negatives as suit her. 

41. Cf. Lodge: "the figure of wrath portrayed in his 
brow." 

42. Mistress. " Used with some unkindness or contempt of 
or to women, from whom the affections of the speaker have 
been estranged." (Schmidt.) Cf. iii. 5. 45. 

with your safest haste, the sooner the better for you. 

45. Cf. Lodge (Torismond to Saladin) : " See thy depar- 
ture be within ten days." 

if that. That is added to if, though, since, etc. on the analogy 
of " who that," " when that," etc. In the latter case it was 
added to give a relative sense to words Originally interrogative. 
The full form is found in Chaucer, Pardoner's Tale, 375, " If 
so were that I might," which shows that after these conjunctions 
an ellipsis must be supplied. Cf. i. 3. 117, "because that"; 
ii. 7. 75, " when that " (Abbott, § 287). 

54. The Duke makes no specific charge, because he has 
none to make, nothing but general mistrust, bred of his own 
" rough and envious disposition." 

55. purgation, exculpation, a quasi-legal use of a legal term. 
Cf. v. 4. 45 ; and note on iii. 1. 17. 

61. At the implied insult to her father, Rosalind is up in 
arms at once. This is the first hint of that high spirit which 



118 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act One 

carries her through all her trials and which lies behind her 
buoyant wit. If she is a woman, she is a princess too. 

64. friends, relatives. Herford attributes this sense (still 
a common one) to Scandinavian influence; 0. N. fraendi al- 
ways = kinsmen. 

66-67. so much to think: as omitted, says Abbott, § 281. 
But perhaps this is a relic of the gerundial infinitive; to think 
= in thinking. 

72. remorse, compassion, as generally in Shakespeare. 
Less often = compunction. 

73. Note the lapse of time implied, and see Introduction, 
p. xi. With this speech compare the picture of girl friendship, 
less tender but still charming, between Helena and Hermia — 
A Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 2. 203-210 : 

" We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, 

Have with our needles created both one flower. 
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, 
Both warbling of one song, both in one key. 
... So we grew together 
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, 
But yet an union in partition." 

Beatrice and Hero, in Muck Ado, are a very different pair. In 
spite of Beatrice's chivalrous warmth in her cousin's cause, 
their natures are too unlike for such perfect intimacy. 

77. Juno's swans. See Appendix B. Ovid (Metamorphoses, 
x. 708) speaks of the junctis cygnis, coupled swans, of Venus's 
car. Shakespeare must have known the passage well, for it 
comes after the story of Atalanta (see iii. 2. 155) and before that 
of the death of Adonis. The words may be a misprint, after 
all, Iuno's for Venus'. 

82. Thou art a fool. Cf. 1. 89, " You are a fool." The 
Duke has a trick of repeating himself, like George III. (Cf. 
i. 2. 237 with i. 2. 240, and see note ad loc.) Here the change of 
pronouns shows that he has left argument for authority. He 
treats Celia like a child. Lodge's usurper, afraid of endanger- 
ing his crown, banishes his daughter when she tries to defend 
her cousin — an act as unnatural as it is unnecessary. 

99. Johnson's defence of the text is sufficient. " Where," 
he asks, " would be the absurdity of saying, ' You know not 
the law which teaches you to do right ' ? " Here, too, the use 
of the indicative (" Which teacheth," not " Which would 



Scene Three] NOTES 119 

teach ") subtly implies that the love is really there, and gives 
the sentence a rhetorical turn. 

am for are. In E. E., as in Latin, the verb may go with the 
nearest subject. 

100. For a moment the greatness of her love gives Celia the 
lead. But as soon as Rosalind has recovered from the shock of 
her sentence, she appropriates Celia's proposal and improves 
upon it. She is eminently efficient, like most of Shakespeare's 
women. Note that the suggestion of male disguise comes 
from her, as well as the proposal to steal the food. From this 
point onward there is no doubt as to the relative positions of 
the cousins. 

104. change, change of fortune. F 2 has charge, i.e. burden ; 
but charge ( = burden entrusted or accepted) would hardly 
apply to Rosalind's sentence. 

106. Note the " pathetic fallacy " common in all poetry, 
which sees in Nature the reflex of our moods. Cf. Milton, 
Paradise Lost, ix. 101 : 

" Sky loured, and, muttering thunder, some sad drops 
Wept at completing of the mortal Sin 
Original." 

117. Cf . Lodge : " I, thou seest, am of a tall stature, and 
would very well become the person and apparel of a page; 
thou shalt be my mistress, and I will play the man so properly 
that, trust me, in what company soever I come, I will not be 
discovered. I will buy me a suit, and have my rapier very 
handsomely at my side, and if any knave offer wrong, your 
page will show him the point of his weapon." 

Shakespeare makes Rosalind play the brother, a more proper 
escort for an errant lady, and better suited for the prominent 
part she is to take in the forest scenes. Rosalind has no occa- 
sion to display her valor, but Shakespeare has used the hint 
again in Twelfth Night (iii. 4), in Viola's duel with Sir Andrew 
Aguecheek. 

118. all points. The preposition is often omitted in adverb- 
ial expressions of time, manner, etc. Cf. iii. 1. 2. 

124. mannish is to " masculine " as " womanish " to " fem- 
inine " : ish is contemptuous. 

125. outface it. It is used indefinitely as the object of a 
verb when the action is (so to speak) its own object. (Abbott, 



120 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

§ 226 ; Kellner, § 283.) Cf. the colloquialisms " rough it," 
" go it," etc. 

outface. Verbs compounded with out mean (1) to excel in, 
or (2) to carry to an end, the action of the verb ; (1) is the com- 
moner meaning in E. E., e.g. outbrag, outswear, outherod. Outface 
has both : (1) to face down, to cow ; (2) to face out, to brazen a 
thing out. Cf. Merchant of Venice, iv. 2. 17, " we'll outface 
them and outswear them too." 

128. Ganymede, a beautiful boy, beloved by Jupiter, who 
(in the form of an eagle) carried him off and made him his 
cup-bearer. (Ovid, Metamorphoses, x. 155-161.) 

131. Scan : " No lon'ger Ce'lia' but A'lie'na." Celia is a tri- 
syllable as in 1. 69. Aliena (Lat.) = stranger. These names 
are taken from Lodge. 

139-140. With Rosalind's banishment a natural pause in 
the action is reached, and Act i closes. It closes upon the word 
" content," the word which strikes the keynote of Act ii. 
*' Content " is the last word that Orlando utters as he turns 
his back upon his brother's house. " Content " is the burden 
of the exiled Duke's first speech. The lovers once safe to- 
gether in Act iii, a livelier sentiment begins to prevail. 

ACT II — SCENE 1 

Leaving Rosalind meditating flight, we are carried on to see 
the place in which the rest of her fortunes are to be transacted. 
This scene contributes nothing to the action of the play. It 
has two closely allied functions : (1) to describe the natural 
background, the free forest life in which the lovers are to meet ; 
(2) to describe the moral background, in the persons of the 
Duke and Jaques. Moreover, coming where they do, these 
forest scenes supply a broad bar of neutral color between the 
somewhat gloomy hues of Act i and the radiant mirth and 
tenderness of Act iii. 

1. co-mates: a fine redundancy, found only here. 

2. 6. old custom. . . . The seasons' difference. We are 
meant to feel that years have been passed in exile. (See Intro- 
duction, p. xi.) 

3. Note the abundant alliteration throughout this scene, 
especially on the labials p, f, b, and the liquids I and m, which 
English verse loves. There is little of this in the plain narrative 
of Act i ; its use now marks a more elaborate and brooding style. 



Scene One] NOTES 121 

6. Here feel we but the penalty of Adam. Ff have not, 
Theobald but. Theobald's correction seems absolutely neces- 
sary. The penalty of Adam is the difference of the seasons. 
Shakespeare follows the classical, not the biblical account. 
Ovid (Metamorphoses, i. 107) describes the Golden Age as a 
perpetual spring. Cf . also Virgil, Georgics, ii. 336 ; and Milton, 
Paradise Lost, x. 678: 

" else had the spring 
Perpetual smiled on earth with vernant flowers." 

Those who defend the Ff explain the penalty of Adam as the 
curse of labor (Genesis iii. 17 : " cursed is the ground for thy 
sake "), and mark a long parenthesis between " the seasons' 
difference " and " these are counsellors." 

6. Here begins the description of the natural background, 
which is deftly continued in the First Lord's speech. The 
winter's wind, the antique oak, the deer, the brawling brook, 
these taken together form a picture sufficiently complete, of 
which Amiens gives the lyrical rendering. 

as, such as ; often introduces all the instances, and so comes 
to mean namely. 

8. Which, as to which. Owing to the interposed clauses, 
the form of the sentence is changed (anacoluthon). 

11. feelingly, by making themselves felt. 

13. venomous. This popular belief, like so many others, 
has some truth in it. The pustules of the toad's skin really 
contain an irritant poison. 

14. This widespread superstition is probably an instance 
of popular etymology. The Batrachites or toadstone of the 
ancients was so called because it was like the toad in color ; but 
popular derivation took the termination -ites to represent — 
as it often does — the natural product of the animal. 

18. So Upton, much to the improvement of the sense. 
The Ff give the whole line to Amiens. 

19-20. " This is one of the interesting passages in which a 
great writer reflects upon his own expressions with pleasure or 
surprise " (Moberly). Shakespeare thus reflects once or twice 
also upon songs ; cf . especially Twelfth Night, ii. 4. 44, " Mark 
it, Cesario, it is old and plain, etc." 

21. us, for ourselves ; the so-called dativus commodi (Kellner, 
§ 190). 

22. it irks me, it vexes me. 



lm AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

fools. In E. E. this is often a term of endearment or pity. 
Cf. 1. 40 below. Compare " silly " = (1) blessed (selig), 
(2) innocent (often in E. E.), (3) weak-minded. And contrast 
" fond." 

23. native burghers. Lodge twice has the same " conceit " : 
" To fat thy sheep, the citizens of field " ; " Around her wonder- 
ing stood The citizens of wood." 

24. Forked heads were distinguished from barbed heads 
by having the points turned the other way. But here the 
expression seems to be used loosely for arrowheads in general. 

26. Jaques, the most important of the background char- 
acters, is now elaborately introduced. Such an introduction 
is needed to interest us beforehand in a person who contributes 
nothing to the action. By using narrative (as in i. 1) Shake- 
speare is able to present him in a characteristic attitude, which 
could not have been put on the stage. Note that he is at once 
dubbed with his proper epithet, " melancholy," and contrasted 
with the Duke. Both are moralists in grain ; but while the 
Duke sees good in everything, to Jaques the incidents of the 
forest are but a repetition of the selfishness and " innane 
distress " of the world he has left behind. 

31. Observe the rare and beautiful vowel alliteration. Cf. 
Milton, Paradise Lost, viii. 1, " The angel ended, and in Adam's 
ear." On this line Coleridge remarks : " Shakespeare never 
gives a description of rustic scenery merely for its own sake, 
or to show how well he can paint natural objects ; he is never 
tedious or elaborate, but . . . usually only touches upon the 
larger features and broader characteristics, leaving the fillings 
up to the imagination. . . . Other and inferior writers would 
have dwelt on this description, and worked it out with all 
pettiness and impertinence of detail. In Shakespeare the 
' antique root ' furnishes the whole picture." This is too indis- 
criminate. Nothing could be less true of the youthful Shake- 
speare. It was only after a long apprenticeship that he learned 
the art of suggestion, leaving details " unseen save to the eye 
of mind." 

32. brawls. A fine poetic word, appealing at once to eye 
and ear. 

38. These lines show Shakespeare's sympathy with animals. 
It was a current opinion that the deer shed tears when dying. 
The metaphor in 1. 39 is suggested by the hunt, and is appro- 
priate in the mouth of the First Lord. 



Scene Two] NOTES 123 

41. marked of. In 0. E. the agent after passives is regularly- 
introduced by from: in M. E. of is the rule, with is not uncom- 
mon, by is the exception : in the 16th century by becomes gen- 
eral, but of is still frequent in Shakespeare. (Kellner, §§ 433- 
435.) 

44. moralize, draw a moral lesson from. 

45. This incontinence of the comparing faculty Jaques shares 
with Shakespeare's Richard II. " The curious intellect of 
Jaques gives him his distinction " (Dowden). What in Richard 
is only the aesthetic indulgence of an unbridled fancy, is in 
Jaques always tagged with a sour moral — the poet making 
bricks for the philosopher. 

46. weeping. One syllable. See Appendix C, p. 183. 
needless. The adjective, like the verb, is either transitive 

or intransitive, active or passive. In E. E. many adjectives 
(especially those in -ful, -less, -ble, and -ive) are indifferent with 
regard to voice. Cf. ii. 6. 9, " comfortable," and iii. 2. 10, 
" unexpressive " (Kellner, §§ 249, 250). 

57. Moberly thinks that Shakespeare had his father's bank- 
ruptcy in mind. But those material troubles were long past and 
it is not in Shakespeare's manner to make personal references of 
this kind ; the draft of a grant of coat-arms to Shakespeare's 
father is in existence, dated October, 1596. 

61. and what's worse, et si quid pejus. The expression is 
now used parenthetically. 

62. up. Added to verbs, up shows that the action is com- 
pleted, and in this intensive sense is very common in Shake- 
speare. 

65. Jaques, says Dowden, came to life again as Laurence 
Sterne. " In Arden he wept and moralized over the wounded 
deer, and at Namport his tears and sentiment gushed forth for 
the dead donkey." 

67. cope, encounter. Used transitively in E. E. ; but also 
intransitively — " cope with," as now. 

68. matter, i.e. matter of discourse. 

SCENE 2 

This short scene prepares us for Act iii, sc. 1, the banishment 
of Oliver. It throws more light on the suspicious and wayward 
character of the Duke. The implied threat in 1. 19, " I'll make 
him find him," thus thrown forward before the final revelation 



124 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

of Oliver's treachery, gives a hint of the retribution he is bring- 
ing upon himself. 

3. consent and sufferance. This is a metaphor from law. 
The term is " applied to a landlord who takes no steps to eject 
a tenant whose time is expired " (Moberly). 

5. her attendants of her chamber. Two nouns joined by of 
are sometimes treated as a Compound noun ; hence the repetition 
of the possessive adjective (Abbott, § 423). 

7. untreasured, a bold coinage of Shakespeare's own, used 
only here ; " treasure " as a verb is used only in Sonnet vi. 3. 

10. There is a Hesperie in Ovid, Metamorphoses, xi. 769. 

13. wrestler: three syllables. See Appendix C, p. 183. 

15-16. A very gentlewomanly conclusion ! 

17. that gallant, i.e. Orlando. 

19. suddenly, at once, without any notion of unexpectedness. 

21. Observe the plural. Celia (i. 3. 138) only anticipated 
pursuit after her flight ; but the " humorous Duke " has already 
swallowed his wrath against Rosalind, or forgotten it in his 
anxiety for his daughter. Note, too, the word " foolish," by 
which the choleric usurper puts on others the blame for his own 
ill-temper. 

SCENE 3 

This scene takes the place of a long and boisterous episode in 
the novel. (See Introduction, p. xii.) It is essential that the 
wrong should be all on Oliver's side. Orlando must remain as 
gentle as he is strong and valiant ; and here is a new testimony 
to the charm of his character, in the love and loyalty which it 
evokes. 

3. memory, memorial. The use of abstract nouns in a con- 
crete sense is very common in E. E. 

4. The thought of his old master is always present in the mind 
of the old servant. 

8. bonny, big, stalwart — a rare but not unexampled mean- 
ing. Scott {Fortunes of Nigel, c. 1) calls grim Richie Moniplies 
" the bonny Scot." For a contemporary parallel, cf. Hooker, 
Sermon VII : " Issachar, though bonny and strong enough, etc." 
(1600 a.d.). There is therefore no need to read " bony," 
which, as Wright points out, would mean skeleton-like rather 
than big-boned. 

priser, one who contends for a prize; a champion. 

9. Yet Orlando left the court at once. 



Scene Three] NOTES 125 

10. some kind of men. Cf . King Lear, ii. 2. 107, " These kind of 
knaves." Such expressions admit a historical explanation. In 
O- E. they said not " all kinds of men " but alles cunnes weras, 
" men of every kind." But (1) as the sense of inflection decayed 
the construction was forgotten — we find alles kynnes ; (2) the 
French phrase all manner of came into use. Hence we find such 
hybrid constructions as this, on the one hand, and " what man- 
ner musicke " (Spenser, Faerie Queene, ii. 12. 70) on the other. 
(Kellner, §§ 167-172.) 

11. them: redundant object (Abbott, § 214). 

12. No more do yours, yours are not more serviceable to you. 
14-15. Shakespeare may have been thinking of the shirt of 

Nessus, which " envenomed " Hercules (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 
ix. 152-175). He refers to it again in Antony and Cleopatra, iv. 
12. 43. Without some such reference the expression is curious. 

23. use, are accustomed. We still employ the past tense of 
the verb in this sense. 

27. noplace, no dwelling-place ; i.e. no home, but a shambles. 

32-33. " Or turn highwayman." Orlando's indignation en- 
forces this with four vigorous adjectives. 

37. diverted blood, blood diverted from the course of nature. 

39. thrifty hire, hire saved by thrift. Cf. i. 1. 41, and 1. 67 
below. 

42. It is better to repeat lie from 1. 41 than to supply be with 
Abbott, § 403. 

43-44. Cf . Luke xii, 6 and 24 : " Are not five sparrows sold for 
two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God ? " 
" Consider the ravens ; for they neither sow nor reap ; . . . and 
God feedeth them." 

48-54. This is one of the most didactic passages in Shake- 
speare. The praise of temperance and chastity is appropriate 
in the mouth of Adam ; but it is difficult to believe that it has 
merely a dramatic significance. 

49. in may depend on rebellious; but it seems to go well with 
the verb. The liquors are applied in, not directly to, the blood. 

For poetic purposes, at least, Shakespeare adopts the fiction 
of " the good old times." In the Sonnets he again speaks of 
the " old age as a time of primitive simplicity and truth : 
" In him those holy antique hours are seen, Without all orna- 
ment, itself and true " (Sonnet 68) ; " In the old age black was 
not counted fair" (Sonnet 127). In reality he probably be- 
lieved that history repeated itself. (See note on ii. 7. 139-166, 



126 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

the doctrine of cycles.) He certainly has no conception of con- 
tinual progress. 

58. sweat. Past tense. The -ed may simply be dropped 
after t for euphony; cf. quit for quitted, waft for wafted, etc. 
(Abbott, § 241) ; or sweat may represent a strong form swat; 
swet occurs in M. E. 

61-2. " Service is killed off by the very promotion it gains." 

62, 63, 65. The rhymes here are probably accidental. 

65. in lieu of, in return for, as always in Shakespeare. Prop- 
erly == in place of. 

67. thy youthful wages, the wages of thy youth. The ad- 
jective is often used where we should expect a genitive. The 
influence of Latin may have something to do with the frequency 
of this idiom in E. E. (Kellner, § 252). 

71. seventeen. So Rowe ; Ff have seauentie or seventy. 

74. too late a week, too late by a week, i.e. by a good deal — 
a proverbial expression. Wright, however, thinks a = in the, 
as in " a-night " (ii. 4. 48). 

SCENE 4 

This scene is a good example of the way in which Shakespeare 
transmutes his material. The prose parts are his own; in the 
rest he follows the novel. But the presence of the clown, with 
his burlesque comments, makes all the difference between the 
sentimental and the comic. As minor changes we note (1) that 
in Lodge Ganymede and Aliena learn Montanus's love from 
poems hung on trees. Shakespeare uses this hint later in Act 
iii, sc. 2. (2) That the conversation overheard between Corin 
and Silvius takes the place of a long eclogue in the novel. 
(3) That Montanus stays on to the end of the scene, and escorts 
the ladies to their cottage. 

1. weary. So Theobald ; Ff have merry. Furness, who de- 
fends merry, says that this is make-believe, and that Rosalind's 
second speech is an aside. But Touchstone's joke requires 
weary. 

2. The fool brings us down at once to the level of the common- 
place. 

6. the weaker vessel. Cf . 1 Peter, iii. 7, " giving honour unto 
the wife as unto the weaker vessel." Shakespeare seems to have 
found the expression comic : cf. 2 Henry IV, ii. 4. 66 : " you are 
the weaker vessel, as they say, the emptier vessel." 



Scene Four] NOTES 127 

12. cross. The ancient penny had a double cross marked on 
it. (Hence the expression, " crossing the palm.") For the pun, 
cf. Matthew, x. 38 : "he that taketh not his cross," etc. 

15. Arden: perhaps a pun — " a den." 

29. As introduces a statement " qualifying or even contra- 
dicting what goes before." (Ingleby.) This use seems to have 
escaped Schmidt. Cf. iii. 5. 38. 

31. fantasy, here = love, or rather love-thoughts, a common 
meaning of the shorter form fancy in E. E. 

36, 39, 42. These short lines, repeated at regular intervals, give 
a dithyrambic effect, proper to the expression of intense feeling. 

38. Wearing, fatiguing. So F 1. The later folios (and the 
Globe) have wearying. 

43. Silvius's sudden exit is very effective. He has said 
enough to prepare for the pastoral subplot. Perhaps, too, 
Shakespeare purposely avoids an encounter between him and 
Touchstone. 

44. searching of. The verbal retains so much of the noun 
that it takes of after it = a searching of. (Abbott, § 178.) 
The metaphor is from surgery ; search = probe. 

49. the kissing of. " The substantival use of the verbal, with 
* the ' before and * of ' after it, seems to have been regarded as 
colloquial." (Abbott, § 93.) It is Touchstone that is speaking. 

batlet. SoF2; F 1 has batter. 

50. chopt. Chop is another form of chap. 

51. peascod. A country lass, when she finds a pod with nine 
peas, will still place it above the door, and the first man who en- 
ters is to be her husband. In Shakespeare's time it was a 
favorite love-token. The peascod must mean here the whole 
plant, which Touchstone imagines to be his sweetheart, as he 
mistakes a stone for his rival. Hence whom and her (1. 52) refer 
to the plant, as him (1. 43) to the stone. Cods (1. 52) are pods. 

53. weeping tears. This is usually taken to be a hit at Lodge, 
who uses the expression seriously. But it is common in E. E., 
and is only an instance of the use of the verbal in a passive sense 
(Kellner, § 420). 

57. mortal in folly, excessively foolish. 

58. ware of. In two senses, aware of and beware of. 

66. clown. Touchstone means bumpkin, and Rosalind plays 
on the word. 

68. betters, superiors. Again Corin takes the word to mean 
those who are better off. 



128 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

74. We may assume an ellipsis of " who is " after " maid " or 
of " she " before " faints." But probably this is only a form of 
the airb kolvov construction referred to in the note on i. 2. 149. 

75. faints for succour, for want of succor. Cf. " die for 
food," ii. 6. 1. Schmidt classes these among the cases where a 
negative is " borne in mind though not expressed." Cf. also 
iii. 2. 31-32. This detail is added by Shakespeare, to make the 
cases of the fugitives alike — cf . sc. 6. In the novel Aliena and 
Ganymede " pulled forth such victuals as they had." 

87. in my voice, as far as I have a voice in the matter. In 
Measure for Measure, i. 2. 185, " in my voice " = in my name. 
Hamlet, v. 2. 367, " dying voice " = dying vote. 

88. What is he. Abbott (§ 254) suggests that in Shake- 
speare's time the first question about anyone might naturally be, 
" What is his rank? " If so, the difference is one of thought, 
not of grammar. 

shall, is going to. The restriction of shall to the first person 
is modern. 

91. stand with honesty, be consistent with fair dealing, i.e. 
toward Sylvius. 

99. feeder, shepherd. The word is used for servant in 
Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 13. 109, but in a contemptuous sense 
(Schmidt renders " parasite ") which is out of place here. 

SCENE 5 

This scene is entirely Shakespeare's. It is interposed here 
between Rosalind's arrival in the forest (sc. 4) and Orlando's 
(sc. 6). The sentiment of the songs is intended to recall that of 
the elder duke's first speech. Jaques — the discordant note 
in this woodland harmony — is at last introduced in person. 

1. Greenwood songs have been popular in England since 
the days of Robin Hood — " In summer when the shaws be 
green." This song may have been in Bunyan's mind when 
he wrote " Who would true valour see " {Pilgrim's Progress, 
Part II). 

3. turn his merry note unto, adapt it to. The phrase is on the 
analogy of " turn a tune," which is still common in dialect. Cf. 
Hall, Sat. vi. 1, " While thread-bare Martial turns his merry 
note." There is little reason for changing " turn " to " tune." 

15. ragged, rough, broken. Common in E. E. for anything 
with a rough edge, where we should say " rugged." 



» 

Scene Five] NOTES 129 

17. Jaques is still in the sullen fit, but his melancholy has 
passed from the pathetic to the brusque. Brusquerie is as much 
part of his pose as pathos. 

19. call you 'em stanzos? Cotgrave confirms this spelling. 
Shakespeare thought the word newfangled and affected — he 
has a good deal of the British contempt for foreign things — 
and puts it into the mouth of the pedant Holofernes in Loves 
Labour s Lost, iv. 2. 107 : " Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a 
verse." 

21. names, in the legal sense of the Lat. nomina, i.e. names of 
debts owed. 

26. that . The relative is omitted — probably because iden- 
tical in form with the demonstrative (Abbott, § 244). 

27. dog-apes, probably dog-faced baboons. 

28. beggarly thanks, thanks like a mendicant's. The adjec- 
tive represents a genitive ; see note on ii. 3. 67. 

32. cover, lay the cloth. The Duke is going to " drink," i.e. 
take dessert, under the tree. See " banquet," 1. 64, below. 

33. the while. While is originally a noun, = time : so the 
while = (in) the (mean) time (Abbott, § 137). 

34. look. The preposition for is often omitted with this verb, 
which thus becomes transitive (Abbott, § 200). 

36. disputable. In the active sense this word = disputa- 
tious. Cf. ii. 1. 46. This from Jaques ! 

38. Cf. Much Ado, iii. 3. 19, " Give God thanks, and make no 
boast of it." 

40. Note the form of the stage direction, and cf . i. 2. 224, 227. 

49. in despite of my invention, to spite my barren imagina- 
tion. Invention is here the poetic faculty. 

52. Shakespeare is an excellent parodist — witness his cari- 
catures of Euphuism and his burlesque of the Cambyses' vein 
in Pistol — and never better than when he is parodying himself. 
Cf. iii. 2. 107. 

56. Ducddme. A meaningless refrain, trisyllabic and metri- 
cally parallel to Amiens' " Come hither." Halliwell quotes a 
similar refrain, " Dusadam-me-me," from a MS. of Piers Plow- 
man, where the printed copies have " How trolly-lolly." 

A world of ingenuity has been wasted on this word to prove it 
Latin, Welsh, Gaelic, etc. It was corrected by Hanmer to due 
ad me, bring him to me. If any change is necessary, the best is 
Mr. Ainger's Ducddme, which makes a rhyme (with " come t6 
me "), where at present there is only an assonance. 



130 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

63. all the first-born of Egypt, probably = all highborn per- 
sons ; but the meaning is open to some question. The phrase 
is from Exodus, xi. 5. 

64. banquet, dessert. See note on 1. 32. 

SCENE 6 

This scene is adapted from the novel, except that there it is 
Rosader who gives way to despair, while Adam cheers him and 
offers to open his own veins to relieve him. By such slight 
changes does Shakespeare gain tenderness and truth. Orlando 
remains the type of manly gentleness. 

I. / die for food. Cf. ii. 4. 75. 

5. comfort is here used reflexively. There has always been a 
tendency in English to drop the reflexive pronoun (Kellner, 
§ 345). 

8. " You are not so near death as you imagine." 

9. comfortable. Usually explained as passive ; but the word 
is always active elsewhere in Shakespeare, and so here = cheer- 
ful. 

II. presently, in E. E. = at once; now = soon, but not at 
once. 

13-14. well said, well done. Shakespeare uses the phrase 
even when no words are actually uttered. 

SCENE 7 

This somewhat complex scene falls naturally into two parts : 
(1) the dialogue between the Duke and Jaques before Orlando's 
entrance and during his absence; (2) Orlando's demand and 
reappearance with Adam. (1) is all Shakespeare's own ; (2) is 
adapted from Lodge. But Rosader, as usual, is more of a swash- 
buckler than Orlando. He offers to support his demand by 
fighting any one of the company ; only famine and the thought 
that all things were savage there make Orlando for a moment 
forget his natural courtesy. The encounter with the fool, nar- 
rated by Jaques, shows that all the chief characters are now in 
the forest — they are not all brought together till the last scene 
— and serves (dramatically) to fill up the time between Or- 
lando's exit in sc. 6 and his entrance in sc. 7. 

1. / think he be. Be (in O. E. generally future, then exclu- 
sively subjunctive) gives a tinge of doubt (a) in questions ; 



Scene Seven] NOTES 131 

(b) after verbs of thinking. The locus clas.sicus is Othello, iii. 
3. 384, " I think my wife be honest, and think she is not." 
(Abbott, §§ 295, 299.) 

5. compact of jars, composed of discords. 

6. discord in the spheres. The Ptolemaic system was still 
the common one in Shakespeare's day; it was held even by 
Bacon, and adopted for poetic purposes by Milton. According 
to the Platonic version of the theory (Republic, x. 616, 617), the 
earth is the center of a system of eight concentric spheres, in 
which are fixed the Sun, the Moon, the five planets, and the 
fixed stars. These spheres revolve around the Earth, each 
carrying its orb with it, and each as it turns utters a note, the 
eight notes yielding a harmony. This musical fancy (attributed 
to Pythagoras) is a favorite both with Shakespeare and with 
Milton. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, v. 1. 60: 

" There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins." 

12. Jaques enters in an entirely new, but quite consistent 
mood. He had grown somewhat bored with the company in the 
forest when in sc. 5 he went off to sleep. He returns in an 
ecstasy over his new acquaintance, in whom he sees a privileged 
philosopher. 

13. a miserable world. Even at the height of his mirth 
Jaques remembers to interject a groan. 

17. motley. A parti-colored dress was the regular costume 
of the professional jester, and survives in the clown of the pan- 
tomime. 

19. Alluding to the proverb, Fortuna favet fatuis, Fortune 
favors fools. 

20. dial, a watch, or perhaps a pocket dial. The word is used 
in E. E. for anything to measure time, on which the hours are 
marked. 

poke. A large pouch was part of the jester's outfit. 

28. And thereby hangs a tale — an expression implying vast 
reserves, like Mr. Kipling's " But that's another story." It is 
used by characters like Mrs. Quickly (Merry Wives, i. 4. 159) 
and the clown in Othello (iii. 1. 8). 

29. moral, moralize. (But Schmidt thinks it an adjective.) 
34. the only wear, the only thing worth wearing. 

36. O worthy fool ! Jaques has not yet had his laugh out. 



132 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Two 

39. In Shakespeare's physiology a dry brain is slow but re- 
tentive. 

40. places may be a translation of Lat. loci, itself a transla- 
tion of Gr. t6itoi, " commonplaces," a rhetorical term for heads 
of argument. But the ordinary sense is sufficient. 

44. suit. A pun. 

45. better. Here used as a proleptic adjective : " Weed your 
judgments and so make them better." Cf. i. 1. 38. 

55. Not to, added by Theobald, is required by the sense, the 
metre, and the obvious antithesis between " doth very wisely " 
and " doth very foolishly." Jaques is explaining why those 
whom he galls most must laugh most ; for, he says, if a fool hits 
you cleverly your only sensible course is to pretend not to feel 
it; if you wince, you expose yourself. 

56. anatomized. Shakespeare's use (and for the matter of 
that his spelling) of Greek words seems to show that he did not 
feel the etymology. Anatomize (which he spells anaihomize) is 
hardly the right word here or in i. 1. 161-162. 

57. even. This particle, says Professor Herford, " is often 
introduced in recurring to an obvious fact (previously referred 
to, or forming a part of the dramatic situation), which explains 
a bold or figurative thought just expressed." 

57. squandering glances, random shots. 

58-69. The medical metaphor is kept up. Jaques thinks that 
his satire will be a purge, the Duke that it will be a poison. 

63. counter, a metal disc used in counting. 

64-87. These lines amount to an attack on, and defense of, 
satire. But the defense does not meet the attack. Your satire, 
says the Duke, will display an acquaintance with vice that will 
corrupt your hearers (a truth that might be illustrated ad nau- 
seam from Latin literature). Jaques replies that it need offend 
no one ; it is general, and the man who takes offense only shows 
that the cap fits. 

65-69. This glimpse into Jaques' past is in Shakespeare's 
" epic " manner. He likes, as far as the conditions of his art 
allow, to show riot only what his characters are, but how they 
have come to be what they are. But Jaques' profligacy is 
thrown back in time, in order not to form too harsh a contrast 
to the prevailing tone of the play. 

66. brutish sting, animal passion. 

67. embossed sores and headed evils. The redundancy 
gives emphasis. " Embossed " (see Glossary) is 'protuberant; 



Scene Seven] NOTES 133 

" headed evils " are boils grown to a head, evil being concrete, 
as in " king's evil." 

73. wearer's. So Singer : F 1 has wearie. Singer's emenda- 
tion is convincing : Jaques is speaking of the pride of dress. 

75-76. The extravagance of the city dames in their attempts 
to ape the court ladies is frequently referred to in the Eliza- 
bethan drama, and is the subject of Massinger's City Madam. 

79. function, office, occupation. 

84. do him right, do him justice. 

85. if he be free, if he have a clear conscience. 

93. civility has in E. E. a somewhat higher sense than now. 
Cf. " civil sayings," iii. 2. 136. 

97. inland bred, bred in inland (i.e. civilized) parts. Inland 
in this sense is opposed not to the coast, but to upland or out- 
landish parts. The word is still so used occasionally in Scotch 
— " a mair inland look," i.e. a more cultivated aspect. 

102-103. Note the arrangement — gentleness . . . force 
. . . force . . . gentleness. 

109. commandment, command, as constantly in E. E. 

110 ff. These lines have the high classic note above any 
others in the play. The versification here — a string of single 
lines in " linked sweetness " — reminds us of Shakespeare's earlier 
manner. 

118. Orlando returns to the antithesis between force and 
gentleness. 

120. The Duke repeats Orlando's words with fine variations. 

125. upon command, for the asking. 

127. Observe again the alliteration on the labial/; and Or- 
lando's characteristic simile " like a doe." 

132. weak, causing weakness. Cf. note on 1. 45, above. 
This is prolepsis in the full sense, when the attribute of an effect 
is transferred by anticipation to the cause. 

137. Shakespeare, though not proud of his calling, naturally 
abounds in theatrical metaphors. 

139. wherein we play in. The preposition is often repeated 
(cf. 1. 90 above), though rarely after so short an interval. But 
it is hardly felt in wherein. 

139-166. The metaphor suggested by the Duke is seized on 
by Jaques and elaborated with his usual fullness of fancy. As 
to this famous speech, observe (1) that it serves dramatically to 
fill up the interval of Orlando's absence ; (2) that it is character- 
istic of Jaques' ab extra view of life ; (3) that all the parts are 



134 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

presented in absurd or sordid lights — the infant mewling, the 
schoolboy whining, the lover sighing, the soldier swearing, etc. 
The thought is that of the Ecclesiast : " The thing that hath 
been, it is that which shall be . . . and there is no new thing 
under the sun " (Ecclesiastes, i. 9). In Sonnet 123, Shakespeare 
recurs to the thought, so common in Greek philosophy, that the 
history of the world repeats itself in periods or cycles. 

139. This comparison may have been suggested by the motto 
of the Globe Theatre, then newly erected, Totus mundus agit 
histrionem, " all the world plays the actor." But the thought 
is very old ; it is worked out by Lucian. 

140. merely, simply, absolutely, like Lat. merus. Contrast 
note on 1. 56. 

143. In describing the Seven Ages of Man, Shakespeare may 
have had some picture in his mind, such as one still sees some- 
times, with the Ages arranged on steps, ascending to the prime 
of life, and descending to the grave. 

148. ballad. Originally this word meant a simple song of 
any sort. 

148-157. Observe the amount of local color in the parts of 
the lover, the soldier, and the justice. (1) Toward the end of the 
sixteenth century there was an outburst of sonneteering unparal- 
leled till our own day. (2) The soldier may have learned his 
oaths in Flanders, where many an Englishman (Ben Jonson and 
Chapman among them) " trailed a pike." Deighton aptly 
compares Bobadil, the braggart captain in Ben Jonson's comedy, 
Every Man in his Humour, who swears by Pharaoh's foot, by the 
body of Csesar. (3) It was common to curry favor with magis- 
trates by making them presents in kind, which often took the 
form of capons. 

150-156. The cut of the beard showed the profession of the 
wearer. 

154. lined. Used in E. E. of contents generally, as still in 
colloquial language. 

156. modern, commonplace, as always in Shakespeare. 

instances, anything cited in proof (Lat. instantiae). 

163. his, its. In O. E. and M. E. his is both masculine and 
neuter. Its dates from Tudor English ; it is not found in Spen- 
ser nor in the Bible of 1611, and seldom in Shakespeare or Bacon. 
In fact, it is not general before the Restoration. Alexander Gil, 
the grammarian (1619), does not recognize it. (Matzner, p. 
287.) 



Scene One] NOTES 135 

175. unkind. See Glossary, under kind. 

178. " Because you do not add insult to injury by braving us 
with your visible presence." 

180. " Songs of the holly were current long before the time of 
Shakespeare. It was the emblem of mirth." (Halliwell.) 

187. warp, distort. For the derivation, see Glossary. But 
the derivation is not always a safe guide to Shakespeare's mean- 
ing. It is more important to see what picture he had in his 
mind. The image here is of the wrinkling surface of a pool on 
which ice is forming, not of its ruffling by the wind, for " thou " 
in this stanza is the " bitter sky." 

189. As friend remembefd not. This is probably an in- 
stance of the use of the past participle in active sense, for which 
see note on iii. 3. 10. Shakespeare frequently has " to be re- 
membered " in the sense of (1) to recollect : cf . iii. 5. 130 ; (2) to 
consider : 

" O be remembered, no outrageous thing 
From vassal actors can be wiped away." 

(Lucrece, 607.) 

191. At this point in the novel Rosader informs Gerismond of 
Rosalind's banishment. 

If that you were implies no doubt, but merely alludes to the 
fact that Sir Rowland is dead. 

193. effigies, likeness. Straight from the Latin, hence the 
accent. 

200. Here Adam disappears from the scene. There are so 
many threads in the action that Shakespeare has his hands full 
without him. 

ACT III — SCENE 1 

This is the climax of the anteplot. It would come somewhat 
earlier in the prosaic order of events, perhaps after Act ii, sc. 3 ; 
but Shakespeare disregards the natural sequence for the sake of 
the dramatic contrast. With the next scene the complication is 
complete and the denouement begins. 

1. Not see him since implies " I did not see him since " on 
Oliver's part. Modern usage would require the perfect tense. 

2. the better part, more than half. Cf. i. 3. 118. 

4. thou present. Nominative absolute, a construction helped 
by the participial form of the adjective. 

6. Cf . Luke, xv. 8, the parable of the pieces of silver. 



136 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

11. quit, acquit, by thy brother's mouth, on his evidence. 

15. More villain thou. The tyrant Duke crushes the tyrant 
brother, and in so doing condemns himself out of his own mouth. 

16. of such a nature, whose duty it is. In Md. E. nature and 
kind have partly exchanged meanings. 

17. extent, seizure, in execution of a writ of extent (extendi 
facias), i.e. a writ to recover debts of record due to the Crown, 
under which the body, lands, and goods of the debtor might be 
seized at once. This passage is quoted by Lord Campbell as an 
instance of Shakespeare's technical knowledge of the law. It 
seems correct in so far as a writ of extent applies to " house and 
lands " ; but here there is no question of debt, nor is Oliver's 
person seized. 

SCENE 2 

This great scene, the longest and most important in the play, 
seems to consist of a number of detached dialogues, connected 
merely by happening in one place. But a Shakespearean scene 
has generally an internal unity, and leads up to a definite cul- 
mination, which constitutes a fresh step towards the denoue- 
ment. So everything here leads up to the meeting of Orlando 
and Rosalind, and the proposed wooing in masquerade. (1) Or- 
lando has not said a word about love since Act i, sc. 2; his 
introductory lines are needed to prepare us for the poems found 
by Rosalind and Celia. (2) The dialogue between Corin and 
Touchstone connects the scene with the pastoral life of the forest, 
as (3) that between Orlando and Jaques connects it with the syl- 
van. These interludes, as well as the conversation in which 
Rosalind learns that Orlando is near, are of Shakespeare's own 
invention ; the idea of the poems hung on trees, and that of the 
mock wooing, are suggested by Lodge (see ii. 4), but only sug- 
gested. 

2. thrice-crowned queen of night. The same goddess was 
worshiped as Luna (the moon) in the heavens, Diana on earth, 
and Proserpine in the underworld. 

3. pale sphere. See note on ii. 7. 5. Observe that the sphere 
of a planet is properly neither the orb nor the orbit, but the hol- 
low shell in which it is fixed, and which carries it around. Shake- 
speare, however, seems to use it inaccurately for the planet 
itself. i| 

4. Diana, the goddess of the chase, is also the goddess of chas- 
tity (cf. iii. 4. 16) ; and Rosalind is spoken of as one of her at- 



Scene Two] NOTES 137 

tendant nymphs Cf . Lodge : " I pray thee, tell me, Forester, 
what is this Rosalind for whom thou pinest away in such pas- 
sion ? Is she some nymph that waits upon Diana's train, whose 
chastity thou has deciphered in such epithets ? " 

5. To carve names on trees is a common device in pastoral 
poetry. Cf. Virgil, Eclogue x. 53, " tenerisque meos incidere 
amores Arboribus " — " to carve my tale of love on tender 
trees." 

10. unexpressive, inexpressible. See note on ii. 1. 46. 

she, when used by Shakespeare as a noun, = woman. Cf . he, 
1. 414 below. 

11-90. Since Touchstone last appeared in ii. 4, his wit has 
suffered a wood-change. The moralizing reported by Jaques (ii. 
7) gives a hint of this transformation. To Corin he poses as a 
man of the world, but on Rosalind's appearance he relapses into 
the buffoon. 

13. On this judicial summing up of the contrast latent in all 
pastoralism, Hazlitt exclaims in ecstasy : " Zimmerman's cele- 
brated work on Solitude discovers only half the sense of this 
passage." 

23. hast. 34. wast. The marked inflection of the second 
person singular allows the pronoun to be omitted. 

39. all on one side qualifies ill-roasted, not damned. Shake- 
speare's similes, says Malone, rarely run on four feet. Similes 
seldom do, and Shakespeare sometimes exhibits the inadequacy 
of an image by the vividness with which he sees it. 

41. With this string of fallacies, wherewith Touchstone tries 
to bewilder Corin, compare the rhetoric with which he bam- 
boozles William (v. 1) ; and the " argals " of the First Grave- 
digger in Hamlet. The fallacy here turns on the ambiguity of 
" good " and " manners." " Manners," like Lat. mores, = 
morals, as well as deportment. Cf. " evil communications cor- 
rupt good manners." Shakespeare does not use " morals." 

45. parlous, a vulgar form of perilous. 

49-50. you salute not . . . but you kiss 9 you never salute 
without kissing. 

55. fells, the skin with the hair (or wool) on. 

56. your. Used indefinitely of what is well-known. Cf. in 
this play v. 1. 47, v. 4. 63-64, v. 4. 107 — all in speeches by 
Touchstone. It is also a favorite idiom with Bottom. 

62. more sounder. The rise of double comparatives in M. E. 
was perhaps due to a struggle between the French and English 



1S8 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

modes of comparison. (Kellner, § 254.) In E. E. they serve 
to give emphasis. 

68. in respect of, in comparison with. 

69. perpend, reflect. (Lat. per : pendere, to weigh.) A 
pedantic word, put into the mouth of Polonius, Pistol, and the 
clown in Twelfth Night. 

74. God make incision in thee; refers to blood-letting. 

75. raw, inexperienced. 

77. Corin is driven to defend himself seriously, in spite of his 
declaration " I'll rest," but his defense only gives another open- 
ing to Touchstone's inexhaustible wit. 

80. harm, ill-fortune. This fine speech contains the gist of all 
real " praises of the country " ; but Touchstone is bent on find- 
ing fault with everything. 

93. east (adj.) belongs to Ind, which is pronounced to rhyme 
with mind. It is spelled Inde in F 1. 

97. lined, drawn. 

98. black to, black compared to. 

99. fair. So Walker ; Ff have face. Fair is a substantive 
here = beauty. This use of the adjective for an abstract sub- 
stantive, though rare in the preceding century, becomes very 
common again in E. E., probably owing to the influence of Latin 
(Kellner, § 248). 

101. I'll rhyme you. You is the so-called ethical dative. 

103. the right butter-women's rank, the regular jog-trot of 
butter- women going to market in a row. Rank = row : cf . iv. 
3. 80, " The rank of osiers." Wright plausibly conjectures rack, 
which, as appears from Holme, is a pace between a trot and an 
amble. 

109. cat will after kind. A proverb. 

111. Winter garments. F 1 and F 2 have wintred, which 
Schmidt defends as an adjective, from the noun winter, and 
compares " bribed buck " = buck given as a bribe, Merry 
Wives, v. 5. 27. 

119. false gallop. The phrase is still used in horsemanship of 
a galloping horse which lifts the wrong foot first. The metaphor 
of 1. 103 is kept up. 

120. infect. Shakespeare uses infection and contagion for 
" pollution," whether moral or physical. 

125. This passage might be cited to prove that Shakespeare 
was not a gardener, for the medlar is a late fruit, and besides the 
season of the graft makes no difference to that of the stock. But 



Scene Two] NOTES 139 

of course it is all banter, and in a sense a fruit which is " rotten 
before it is ripe " may be called early. The medlar is not really 
eaten rotten ; for the pun on meddler, cf . Timon of Athens, iv. 
3. 307-309. 

126. right with a = real, downright (." a right maid," 
Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 2. 302) ; with the = proper, true. 
Cf. 1. 103 above. 

129. Touchstone owns himself worsted : Rosalind has carried 
the war into his own territory. 

134. For. Shakespeare uses for to introduce a reason (1) (as 
at present) by a coordinate sentence; (2) by a subordinate 
clause, as here = because. In the latter sense he has also the 
full form, for that. 

136. civil sayings, maxims of civilized life. Cf. ii. 7. 93. 

138. erring, wandering, in the literal sense of Lat. errare. 

144. sentence end. For the omission of the 's, see note on 
i. 2. 175-176. It is common in dissyllables ending in a sibilant. 
(Abbott, § 217.) 

147. quintessence. Over and above the four elements (fire, 
air, earth, and water), the medieval alchemists figured a fifth 
essence, quinta essentia, or ether, purer even than fire. This 
quintessence is to the world as the spirit to the body. Hence it 
is used loosely for the concentrated essence of anything, perhaps 
with a confused idea that the name means " essence five times 
distilled." For the accent, cf . Ben Jonson's dictum, " all nouns, 
both dissyllabic (if they be ' simple ') and trisyllabic, are ac- 
cented on the first." See Appendix C, p. 181. 

148. in little. From the number of astrological allusions in 
these verses (" quintessence," " distilled," " heavenly synod"), 
it is probable that there is a reference here to the view of man as a 
microcosm or epitome of the great world. Cf. Richard II, v. 5. 
9, " this little world " — of his own mind. 

151. wide-enlarged, spread through the world, till they are 
concentrated in Rosalind. Enlarge in Shakespeare is, regularly, 
not to make large, but to set at large, to spread abroad. 

152. With this eulogy cf. Romeo and Juliet, ii. 4. 41 : " Laura 
to his lady was but a kitchen wench . . . Dido a dowdy ; Cleo- 
patra a gipsy ; Helen and Hero hildings and harlots." 

153. Helen, the wife of Menelaus, and the most beautiful 
woman of Greece. She was carried off by Paris and so caused 
the Trojan War. Shakespeare introduces her in Troilus and 
Cressida. 



140 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

154. Cleopatra, queen of Egypt in Julius Caesar's time. Her 
beauty bewitched Antony, and nearly broke up the Roman Em- 
pire. She is the heroine of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. 

155. Atalanta, according to Greek legend, challenged her 
suitors to race with her. The prize was her hand ; the penalty 
death. Hippomenes outstripped her by dropping golden apples 
in her way. (Ovid, Metamorphoses, x. 562, etc.) What is her 
" better part " ? Not her beauty, for Rosalind already has 
" Helen's cheek " ; nor her chastity, for she has " Lucretia's 
modesty." It is her speed for which she is always celebrated in 
classical literature (cf. 11. 293-294, below), and speed, or grace 
of motion, is a fitting attribute for one of Diana's huntresses (cf. 
1. 4 above). 

156. Lucretia, a Roman lady, dishonored by Tarquin. She 
is the heroine of Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece. 

162. And I to live. Abbott (§ 416) includes this among the 
instances of " construction changed for clearness." But the 
construction can be explained historically. In M. E. the in- 
finitive was used in absolute constructions to supply the place 
of the missing future participle — rege morituro, " the king to 
die " — and so used freely to alternate with any principal clause. 
Cf., Bacon (Advancement of Learning, 284), " But on this condition, 
that she should follow him, and he not to follow her." (Kellner, 
§ 400.) 

163. pulpiter. So Spedding; Ff have Jupiter. Spedding's 
emendation is irresistible, though the Folio text does not abso- 
lutely call for emendation. Rosalind swears by Jupiter, ii. 4. 1. 
and by Jove, ii. 4. 61. But " most gentle Jupiter " is very odd. 
For the form pulpiter, cf. " moraler," Othello, ii. 3. 301 ; " justi- 
cer," King Lear, iii. 6. 23. Shakespeare manufactures names of 
agents by simply adding -er to other nouns ; in the last example 
this -er = French -eur. 

171. scrip, a shepherd's or pilgrim's wallet. Cf . Samuel, xvii. 
40, " and put them in a shepherd's bag . . . even in a scrip." 
Scrippage is coined by Touchstone on the analogy of baggage. 

172-266. This delightful dialogue is of Shakespeare's own 
invention. In Lodge, the two ladies are together when they dis- 
cover Rosader and his sonnet simultaneously. Shakespeare 
leads gradually up to this climax. First Rosalind finds verses ; 
then comes Celia with more. But Rosalind calmly dissembles 
curiosity till Celia (1. 191) drops a very broad hint that the 
author is Orlando. Then she can restrain herself no longer; 



Scene Two] NOTES! 141 

she besieges Celia with demands for his name, and gives her 
playful cousin a fine opening for that admiring banter in which 
she excels. After fifty lines (1. 224) Celia yields up the name, 
Orlando, and is immediately overwhelmed with another torrent 
of questions. As she is getting breath to reply, Orlando enters 
in person. 

179. without, outside. 

182. how thy name should be hanged. Abbott (§ 328) gives 
this as an instance of the use of should in reported speech = was 
said to be. This use, though not uncommon in E. E. (cf. Ger. 
sollen), and still found in dialect, is not in place here. The 
clause depends on wondering, and " should be " = came to be. 
This periphrastic use of should is common after " amaze," 
" wonder," " strange," etc. Cf. Henry V, i. 1. 53, " which is a 
wonder how his grace should glean it." 

184. A wonder is proverbially supposed to last nine days. 

186. a palm-tree. The flora and fauna of Arden must not be 
judged by prosaic rules. Cf. the lioness in iv. 3. 115 ; and the 
" tuft of olives," iii. 5. 76. Shakespeare was not afraid of in- 
consistencies and anachronisms when they suited his dramatic 
purpose. 

187. since Pythagoras' time. Pythagoras, an ancient Greek 
philosopher, is credited with the doctrine of the transmigration 
of souls (Ovid, Metamorphoses, xv). Shakespeare alludes to it 
again in The Merchant of Venice, iv. 1. 131, and Twelfth Night, 
iv. 2. 54-62. 

that, when (Abbott, § 284). 

an Irish rat. It was a current belief in Shakespeare's day 
that Irish enchanters could rhyme rats to death. 

189. Celia is still trying to provoke Rosalind's curiosity. " Is 
it a man ? " asks Rosalind coolly. But Celia has her revenge 
when she mentions the chain. Cf. i. 2. 257. 

191. And a chain, with a chain. This use of and in answers 
implies " Yes," and adds something more. 

195. " Friends may meet, but mountains never greet." 
Ray's Proverbs. 

196. with earthquakes. In O. E. mid (with) represents the 
instrumental case ; in M. E. it frequently introduces the agent 
(see note on ii. 1. 41) ; and in E. E. it is often used with agent or 
cause, where we now use by. 

203. out of all hooping, beyond all exclamations of surprise. 
Cf . Henry V, ii. 2. 108, " That admiration did not hoop at them." 



142 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

204. Good my complexion! Rosalind adjures her blushes 
not to betray her. Cf. Celia's " Change you colour? " For 
the order of the words, cf. i. 2. 1. 

205. caparisoned. Properly used of horses; here used in 
comic exaggeration. 

206-207. One inch . . . South-sea of discovery, delay an- 
other minute and I'll overwhelm you with an ocean of questions. 

214. Is he of God's making ? or his tailor's ? (Wright.) 

221. Stay, wait for, as often in Shakespeare. 

226-227. speak, sad brow and true maid, speak seriously, as 
you are a true maid. Without the comma, brow and maid are 
accusative. Cf. 1. 290 below, " I answer you right painted cloth." 
With the comma they are rather to be taken as vocatives. 

231. Rosalind naturally thinks first of her dress, but only 
for a moment. The thought that her lover is near, and that 
Celia has seen him, expels everything but a desire to hear about 
him. She eagerly inquires, " Did he ask for me ? " forgetting in 
her excitement that Orlando would not recognize Celia in her 
disguise. 

234. Wherein went he? how was he dressed? She thinks 
about Orlando's clothes too. This use of " go in " is common in 
Shakespeare. 

235-236. parted . . . with, parted from. With is used, by a 
sort of inversion, of separation from things or persons with which 
one has been connected. We still " part with " things ; in E. E. 
with persons as well. 

238. Gargantua's mouth. Gargantua is the giant in Rabelais 
who swallows five pilgrims in a salad. There was as yet no trans- 
lation of Rabelais in English, but a chapbook history of Gar- 
gantua was very popular in the sixteenth century. 

241. catechism, catechizing. 

245. atomies, motes ; the Shakespearean form of atoms. 

247. observance, attention. 

249. Jove's tree. The oak was sacred to Jupiter (perhaps 
from the oak groves at his shrine of Dodona), as the poplar to 
Hercules, etc. 

251. Celia enters into the spirit of the situation with her mock 
heroics. 

256. ground perhaps = background. But the natural mean- 
ing is satisfactory, unless Rosalind intends a pun. 

260. heart, a pun on hart. Rosalind's irrepressible excite- 
ment vents itself in fanciful word-play. " There is a natural, an 



Scene Two] NOTES 143 

almost irresistible, tendency in the mind, when immersed in one 
strong feeling, to connect that feeling with every sight and object 
around it" (Coleridge). Rosalind sees every point in Celia's 
description as it rises, and interprets it by her own heart. 

261. would is often used conditionally : " I should wish " (if 
you would let me), not " I did wish." 

burden, refrain. 

262. bringest, puttest. Celia is getting a little impatient at 
these continual interruptions, and Rosalind at once drops into 
tenderness — " Sweet, say on." 

268-312. This interlude, besides contrasting Orlando and 
Jaques, gives Rosalind time to recover herself. Eager as she 
is for news of her lover, her first instinct, when he actually 
appears, is to " slink by." She is rewarded by hearing him pro- 
claim his love and discomfit the scoffer. 

269. Jaques has attached himself to Orlando, as the most 
recent addition to society in the Forest. But he can make 
nothing of him, and tells him so rather rudely. Jaques has been 
accustomed to have his brusque ways humored by the foresters, 
and is beaten with his own weapons when Orlando retorts. It 
must be owned that Orlando's repartees only amount to saying 
" You're another," with variations; but they serve their pur- 
pose. 

270. myself alone, alone by myself. In the nominative, my- 
self, himself, etc. are short for prepositional phrases, by, of, for 
myself, etc. (Abbott, § 20). 

271. for fashion sake. The 's of the possessive is here 
omitted for euphony. Cf. note on i. 2. 175-176. 

273. God be wV you. Ff have God buy you; Md. E. = 
Good-bye. But Jaques does not go yet. He tries a parting shot, 
and, failing to get the last word, returns to the fray. 

289. rings. This refers to the mottoes or " posies " engraved 
on rings. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, v. 1. 147, " a paltry ring 
. . . whose posy was . . . * Love me, and leave me not.' ' 

290-291. / answer you right painted cloth. For the construc- 
tion cf. Othello, ii. 3. 281, " speak parrot," and Horace's saltare 
Cyclopa, to dance the Cyclops. Hangings of painted canvas 
were used as a substitute for tapestry. The subjects were gen- 
erally scriptural, and ornamented with moral sayings. 

293. Jaques' compliment is meant for a flag of truce. He 
wants some one to talk to. But Orlando doesn't want him ; and 
their repartees come down to plain " Fool." 



144 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

294. Again compare Jaques with Richard II (lii. 2. 155) : 

" For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground 
And tell sad stories of the death of kings." 

And note the difference between the pathetic indulgence of the 
one sentimentalist and the satirical indulgence of the other. 

297. breather, living being. For the formation cf. 1. 289 
above. This manly and characteristic utterance effectively 
marks the contrast between Orlando and Jaques. 

307. Jaques falls rather too easily into this obvious " booby- 
trap." 

313-457. This is the proper climax of the scene and of the 
play. From this point Rosalind is almost transformed. It is 
only the presence of Orlando that can evoke from her this daz- 
zling play of wit and fancy. 

316. Orlando is naturally not in the best of tempers after his 
encounter with Jaques. At Rosalind's saucy " Do you hear ? " 
he turns and answers somewhat drily — as man to boy — 
M Very well." 

319. Cf . Lodge : " for the sun and our stomachs are shep- 
herds' dials." 

320. Rosalind at once starts the subject of love, eager to make 
Orlando disclose to herself the passion he was not ashamed to 
own to Jaques ; but he takes up her epigram by the other end. 

321. Cf. Richard II, v. 5. 51 : 

" My thoughts are minutes . . . 
. . . the sound that tells what hour it is 
Are clamorous groans." 

330. who . . . withal. Who for whom is common when the 
governing word succeeds ; not so common when it precedes. 

331. There seems to be some inconsistency here, though per- 
haps it is prosaic to expect consistency in metaphors. To the 
bride, Time's hard trot makes a week seem long; to the con- 
demned thief, his gallop makes the trip to the gallows seem all 
too short. (1) We may suppose (with Wright) that a hard trot 
means not a fast but an uneasy pace, which makes the journey 
seem long. But all the other terms refer to speed. Or (2) that 
the antithesis is between the trot and the amble, and that when 
we come to the gallop the point of view is changed. The bride, 
full of hopes and fears, seems to have lived seven years in a week ; 
the easy-going priest hardly feels himself older. Here we are 



Scene Two] NOTES 145 

looking back, and it is a psychological fact that periods which 
seem short in passing seem long in retrospect, and vice versa. 
The condemned thief, looking forward, sees the gallows approach- 
ing at lightning speed. (Cf. Warde's article " Psychology " 
(p. 65), in the Ency. Brit.) 

333. a se'nnight, a week; cf. " a fortnight " = " a fourteen- 
night." 

335. seven year. This use of the singular for the plural is 
common in Shakespeare after numerals, especially in the lan- 
guage of vulgar persons. In O. E. certain neuter substantives, 
e.g. year, night, etc., had the same form in both numbers. 

341. Learning has always been held to be emaciating. Chau- 
cer says of his clerk of Oxenford, " And he was not right fat, I 
undertake." Cf. also Julius Casar, i. 2. 194 : " Yond Cassius 
has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much." 

352. Orlando has quite forgotten his ill-humor, and has 
grown interested in the sprightly boy before him. 

354. like fringe upon a petticoat. The simile, suggested by 
skirts, is thoroughly feminine. Shakespeare's women talk like 
women. So Imogene says (Cymbeline, i. 1. 167) : 

" I would they were in Afric both together ; 
Myself by with a needle, that I might prick 
The goer-back." 

356. native. Always an adjective in Shakespeare when used 
of persons. 

360. removed, sequestered. 

362. religious: probably = belonging to a religious order. 
Cf. v. 4. 166. 

364. courtship. Used in both senses, of courtly manners 
and of courting. Rosalind is resolved to bring the conversation 
back to the subject of love. This time she gets as far as women. 

372. like one another as half-pence are. See Introduction, 
p. viii. The simile is apt, for there was much less uniformity in 
the rest of the coinage. 

375. Orlando would like to hear her descant on the faults of 
women as she has descanted on the paces of Time. But Rosa- 
lind is not to be put off. 

382. fancy-monger, dealer in love. Compounds with -mon- 
ger have generally a contemptuous sense when used metaphori- 
cally. 



146 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

383. quotidian, a fever or ague recurring daily, and supposed 
to be a symptom of love. For the formation (Lat. cotidiana 
[febris], daily [fever], from cotidie, every day), cf. " quartan 
ague," an ague recurring every fourth day. 

385. love-shaked. This word shows that the " quotidian of 
love " is thought of as a cold ague rather than as a fever. In the 
past participle Shakespeare has the weak form shahed, as well 
as shaken, and shook. Shaked is found as early as Skelton and 
as late as the eighteenth century. 

387. Orlando has said it ; but Rosalind, eager to hear more, 
pretends to doubt that he is in love, or that love is such a serious 
thing at all. She calls it a cage of rushes, to indicate the flimsy 
nature of its bonds. 

392. Rosalind throws herself with renewed zest into the de- 
scription of the disconsolate lover. Her inventory gives her an 
excuse for noting Orlando's appearance, and answering to herself 
some of the questions she poured out on Celia — "How looked 
he ? Wherein went he ? " 

393. a blue eye, i.e. blue round the lids. 

394. unquestionable, averse to talk. Question often = con- 
versation in E. E. Cf. iii. 4. 39; v. 4. 167. For the termina- 
tion -able, cf. disputable (ii. 5. 36), and note on ii. 1. 46. 

396. simply, without qualification. 

having denotes possession, as often in Shakespeare. 

398. your bonnet unbonded. Bonnet in E. E. is synonymous 
with hat. Hatbands were worn in various colors. With the 
whole passage Malone compares Heywood's Faire Maid of the 
Exchange (1637) : " Shall I defy hatbands, and tread garters 
and shoe-strings under my feet ? " — a passage probably in- 
spired by the present. 

404. Orlando is serious now. The " Fair youth " of this line, 
as compared with the " pretty youth " of 1. 352, shows his grad- 
ual change of demeanor towards Rosalind. In v. 4. 28-29, he 
says to the Duke : 

" My lord, the first time that I ever saw him 
Methought he was a brother to your daughter." 

And though he certainly has no suspicion here as to who she 
really is — a clumsy ingenuity of Gervinus' — the resemblance 
and the femininity of her charm win him unawares. 

406. This is the first of those double entendres in which so 
much of the humor of the situation consists. But it is more 



Scene Three] NOTES 147 

than humorous. It helps to relieve her own heart, and to en- 
courage Orlando. 

410-419. As Rosalind gets serious, Orlando gets jocular. 
But he says the words she wants to hear before she recovers the 
tone of disbelief. 

421. This was the usual treatment of lunatics till not very- 
long ago. 

425. In this offhand way does Rosalind introduce her plan for 
getting Orlando to come and court her. In Lodge, the sugges- 
tion is not made till their second meeting. 

430. moonish, variable like the moon. 

436-437. entertain . . . forswear, receive his addresses at 
one time, at another refuse to have anything to do with him. 

439. living, real, not affected. " From being madly in love, I 
made him mad in earnest." Walker would read loving; but 
living is like enough in sound for the jingle, and gives point to 
the antithesis. 

humour is used with a slight variation of sense : " mad hu- 
mour " = silly whim : " living humour " = actual vein (of 
madness). Cf. note on i. 2. 278. This looser sense of humour, 
which marks the transition to its common modern meaning, 
seems to have been coming into vogue at this date. Ben Jonson 
(Induction to Every Man in his Humour) after denning the true 

sense adds : 

" Now if an ideot 
Have but an apish or fantastic strain, 
It is his humour." 

And the cant of it by Nym on every occasion is clearly a hit at 
some current form of slang. 

443. This metaphor is in Rosalind's assumed character of 
shepherd-boy. The liver was supposed, as in Greek and Latin 
poetry, to be the seat of the passions, especially of love, jealousy, 
and courage. " Liver, brain, and heart " sum up the human 
faculties (Twelfth Night, i. 1. 37). 

455-456. Come, sister. All this time Celia has said nothing. 
Her humor blooms for Rosalind, as Rosalind's for Orlando. 

SCENE 3 

An entirely Shakespearean interlude. The climax of the main 
plot having been reached, Shakespeare proceeds, in this and the 
next two scenes, to work in his comic and pastoral subplots. 



148 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

1. Audrey, short for Ethelreda. Hence tawdry, from the gew- 
gaws sold at St. Audrey's fair. 

2. goats. Audrey's goats mark a more pronounced rusticity 
than that of the pastoral characters. In Greek Pastoral, " goat- 
herd " is a term of contempt (Theocritus, i. 85 ; vi. 7) ; in Chris- 
tian Pastoral the goatherd is the wicked character — in allusion 
to the scriptural metaphor, " the sheep on his right hand and 
the goats on his left " — as Spenser explains in his notes to his 
7th iEglogue : "by Gotes, in scrypture, be represented the 
wicked and reprobate, whose pastour also must needes be such." 

3. feature, appearance in general (see Glossary). Audrey 
does not understand the Latin word, any more than she under- 
stands " poetical " (1. 17 below). If there is any more recondite 
joke, it is hopelessly lost. 

8. capricious (Lat. capra, she-goat) keeps up the pun on goats 
and Goths. Ovid was banished by Augustus to Tomi on the 
Euxine, in the country of the Getae, or Goths, as Shakespeare 
calls them. 

10. ill-inhabited, having a bad habitation. Shakespeare's 
bold formations in -ed have a twofold origin. The suffix is (1) 
adjectival, (2) participial. (1) -ed added to substantives con- 
notes the possession of that substantive : e.g. " charmed power," 
" furred moss," etc. But when there is no corresponding sub- 
stantive (e.g. " becomed love " = becoming love), the form must 
be (2) participial, an instance of the p. part, in active sense. 
This is a relic of the time when the participle was indifferent as to 
voice (cf. Lat. cenatus, having supped), and is proved for Shake- 
speare by the existence of forms in -en (e.g. " forgotten " = for- 
getful) which cannot be adjectives, though used adjectivally. 
The frequence of active forms in -ed as compared to those in -en 
is due to the ambiguous nature of that suffix. (The adjectival 
-ed is probably in the last resort participial ; cf . Lat. auritus, 
eared; and Greek adjectives in -tos formed directly from 
nouns.) 

11. Jove in a thatched house. Jupiter and Mercury, wander- 
ing about in human figure, were hospitably received by Baucis 
and Philemon, an old couple in Phrygia (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 
viii. 630). The story is told in English by Swift. 

15. a great reckoning in a little room, a long bill in a poor inn. 

19-20. the truest poetry is ever the most feigning. Shake- 
speare's criticisms on his own art are interesting, even when 
made in jest. Cf. A Midsummer Night's Dream, v. 1. 14 : 



Scene Three] NOTES 149 

" And as imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name." 

Bacon, too, calls poetry " feigned history," and Sidney's view 
of it is the same. Cf. also Twelfth Night, i. 5. 208. 

21-22. Two constructions are confused : (1) may be said to 
be feigned ; (2) it may be said they do feign. 

23. Audrey's reiterated allusions to the gods are in the con- 
ventional pastoral manner. 

29-30. hard-favoured, harsh-featured. For the sentiment, 
cf. the Scotch proverb, " Butter to butter's nae kitchen " (i.e. 
no relish). 

32. material, full of matter, in the sense of ii. 1. 68. 

36. foul. Touchstone means " dirty," Audrey means 
" plain." 

43. Sir. Properly applied to knights, baronets, and B. A.'s. 
In the last sense, it is said to represent the Dominus still pre- 
served in Cambridge Tripos lists ; but the title was allowed by 
the Pope to priests who had no degree (" pope's knights " they 
were called). Cf. Sir Nathaniel in Love's Labour s Lost; Sir Hugh 
Evans in Merry Wives; and Sir Topas in Twelfth Night. From 
what Jaques says below (1. 89), Sir Oliver would seem to be 
but a hedge parson. Cf. the use of Dan and Dom, both ab- 
breviations of dominus, and applied to clerics. 

49. stagger, hesitate. 

51. what though? what though it be so? This ellipsis is 
common after if; e.g. " or if " (it be so) ; " which if " (it be so). 

56-57. Horns? . . . alone? F 1 has homes, even so poor 
men alone. The punctuation is Theobald's. 

58. rascal, a deer out of season. (See Glossary.) As applied 
to persons, the word has now lost some of its color. In E. E. it 
still means " good for nothing." 

62. defence, the art of self-defense. 

64. to want, to be without : " a horn is better than nothing." 

66. dispatch us, settle our business. 

76. God 'lid you, God yield you, i.e. reward you. The occa- 
sion referred to must be the meeting related by Jaques in ii. 
7. 12-34. 

78. pray be covered, please put on your hat. As an old 
courtier himself, Touchstone is on his manners at the sight of a 



150 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

gentleman, and apologizes for his present company; but his 
patronizing tone extends itself to Jaques, an unconscious retort 
on Jaques' own air towards him. 

80. bow. Not the yoke, but the flexible collar to which it 
was attached. 

81. the falcon her bells. In older English, the falcon is the 
female, the tercel the male goshawk. 

91. The quality of Touchstone's love may be judged from this 
aside. He regards marriage as a second-best course. / am not 
in the mind but, I am not sure that I had not. 

101. This is a scrap of a ballad. In 1584, Richard Jones en- 
tered the ballad, " Oh, sweet Oliver, Leave me not behind thee." 
The names of Roland and Oliver, Charlemagne's peers, were 
popular in ballad poetry. 

108. The marriage is deferred so that Touchstone and Audrey 
may form a fourth couple at the wedding in the last scene. 

SCENE 4 

This scene seems to be laid on the morning after Act iii, sc. 2. 
Rosalind is really, anxiously, in love, and fretful at Orlando's 
non-appearance. Celia assents with alacrity to all her re- 
proaches till she drives Rosalind into defending him, exagger- 
ates her defense till Rosalind comes back to reproaches, and 
protests her disbelief till the entrance of Corin creates a diver- 
sion. The prose part is Shakespeare's own. 

8. According to the physiognomy of that day, the color of the 
hair was thought to denote the disposition ; red hair inclining to 
black was the index of a deceitful and malicious nature. 

9. In old tapestries Judas was represented with a red beard. 
So in Matthew Arnold's Saint Brandon : " Of hair that red and 
tufted fell." 

15. holy bread, probably sacramental bread, though Barron 
Field says it was " merely one of the ceremonies which Henry 
VIII's Articles of Religion pronounced good and lawful." 

16. cast, cast-off. If one may buy a pair of lips, one may buy 
them second-hand. The ludicrous expression is intentional. 
F 2, F 3, and F 4 read chast (i.e. chaste), an obvious correction 
by the editor. 

17. Celia invents a new Order of nuns, to symbolize cold 
chastity. 

27. a covered goblet. " A goblet with its cover on is a better 
emblem of hollo wness than with it off " (Deighton). 



Scene Five] NOTES 151 

37. Perhaps Celia introduces this reference to the old Duke 
intentionally, to turn the conversation from Orlando. Rosalind 
and she had come to seek the Duke, but to reveal themselves now 
would spoil everything. Rosalind's excuse is also Shakespeare's 
apology for this little breach of faith. Cf. note on v. 2. 32. 

45. traverse, across. The tilter tried to carry his lance fair 
upon his adversary's shield, so that if broken it split lengthways. 
To break it across implied awkwardness. 

46. lover. Used in E. E. of either sex. We still speak of a 
" pair of lovers." 

50-63. In these lines Shakespeare has simply versified Lodge. 
The incident now introduced comes considerably later in the 
novel, after the arrival of Saladin and the rescue of Celia from the 
robbers. (See Introduction, p. xii.) Shakespeare starts both 
the comic and the pastoral subplot in this third Act ; if left to 
the end of the fourth, they would delay the action when it should 
be hastening to its close. 

51. that ; 52. who. As that introduces an essential charac- 
teristic, it generally comes nearer to the antecedent than who 
or which. (Abbott, § 260.) 

56. pale complexion. Sighing was believed to drain the 
blood from the heart. 

61. For the monosyllabic first foot, cf. ii. 4. 69, and Appendix 
C, p. 178. 

SCENE 5 

Shakespeare still follows the novel pretty closely. The rest of 
this episode he treats with a freer hand. (See Act iv, sc. 3.) In 
Twelfth Night he returns to the theme — of one woman falling 
in love with another — and touches it to finer issues. Cf. 
especially Twelfth Night, Act i, sc. 5, and Act iii, sc. 1. Olivia 
differs from Phebe as high-born dame from humble shepherdess. 
She does not disclose her passion so abruptly and naively, nor 
sue to Viola as a superior being ; but she finally throws away the 
pride of birth and rank, and offers herself with equal abandon. 

5. Falls, lets fall. In O. E. transitive verbs could be formed 
from intransitives by addition of -ja to the past stem, and change 
of the root vowel. The existence of verbs in which the two 
forms were identical facilitated the use of intransitive verbs as 
transitive without change of form — a license very common in 
E. E. (Kellner, §§ 360-364.) 



152 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Three 

6. but first begs pardon, without first begging pardon. For 
the practice referred to, cf . Webster, Vittoria Corombona (v. 2) : 

" Thou hast too good a face to be a hangman. 
If thou be, do thy office in right form ; 
Fall down upon thy knees and ask forgiveness." 

7. dies and lives, makes his living from the cradle to the 
grave. Mr. Arrowsmith has shown that this inversion (" die 
and live " for " live and die ") is by no means uncommon. But 
his examples do not explain the meaning here, where live = sub- 
sist. It is a violent zeugma ; i.e. by bloody drops is joined to 
both verbs, when it properly goes only with lives. Shakespeare 
probably meant to end the sentence differently, and was led 
astray by the double meaning of lives. 

8. Phebe meets Silvius' protestations with contemptuous 
common sense. They have no meaning to her as yet. 

11-12. that . . . who. See note on iii. 4. 51. Who person- 
ifies. 

17. swoon. The Ff spell swound here, swoon in iv. 3. 159, 
and sound in v. 2. 25. The pronunciation was in a state of tran- 
sition. 

22. F 2 reads lean but upon, to mend the metre. But a syl- 
lable is sometimes omitted in this place. See Appendix C, 
p. 178. 

23. capable impressure, impression that can be perceived. 
Capable is here passive = sensible. In Hamlet, iii. 4. 126, " His 
form . . . preaching to stones, Would make them capable," it 
is active = sentient. 

24. some moment. With singular nouns of time, some — 
" about a," is not uncommon; e.g. " some hour hence," " some 
minute." 

26. nor . . . no. The double negative is especially common 
in this form. 

32. Disbelieving in a passion she has never felt, Phebe chal- 
lenges her fate ; and deserves it. 

35. Rosalind has come meaning " to prove a busy actor in 
their play," and her energetic performance shows her strong 
character in a new light. In every line we feel the woman speak- 
ing, and speaking to an inferior. No boy could scold a woman 
so. The plain directness of these home thrusts is in marked 
contrast to her airy manner with Orlando. 

36. and all at once, and that too all in a breath. 



Scene Five] NOTES 153 

37. have no beauty. This is the sting of Rosalind's scolding : 
" do you think your plainness an excuse for pride ? " She re- 
peats the charge of ugliness again and again. LI. 46-47 are not 
meant for praise ; Phebe certainly does not take them as a com- 
pliment (see 11. 129-130). The text is sound. 

38-39. " That is, without exciting any particular desire for 
light to see it by " (Moberly). 

43. sale-work, ready-made goods, as Wright says. 

'Od's my little life. 'Od's is for " God's." Rosalind is fond 
of these " pretty oaths." 

46-47. These are meant for very rustic charms. Brunettes 
were not the fashion in Shakespeare's day, at the court of a fair- 
haired Queen. Cf. Sonnet 127, " In the old age, black was not 
counted fair," and for the " cheek of cream," the scornful 
description of Rosaline in Love's Labour's Lost, iii. 198, as 

" A whitely wanton with a velvet brow, 
With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes." 

47. bugle, a black glass bead ; here an adjective. 

48. entame. En-, originally locative (cf. enclose), is used in 
E. E. of bringing into any state. Cf . enfree, to set free ; engross, 
to make fat. 

60. The south is the rainy wind. 

52. Still addressed to Silvius. " But for fools like you, who 
think them pretty, ugly women would not get married and fill 
the world with ugly children." 

53. That makes. The relative, perhaps from its want of 
inflection, often takes a singular verb though the antecedent is 
plural, and takes third person though the antecedent is first or 
second (Abbott, § 247). 

55. out of you: as her mirror ; " in the reflection of your flat- 
tery." Out of, as often in E. E., indicates the source; cf. King 
John, ii. 100, " These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his." 

61. cry the man mercy, beg his pardon. 

62. " Ugliness is ugliest in a scoffing person." 

69-70. Why look you so upon me? Shakespeare believes 
that love is " engender'd in the eyes, with gazing fed." Cf. 
Twelfth Night, ii. 2. 20 (Viola of Olivia) : 

" She made good view of me ; indeed, so much, 
That sure me thought her eyes had lost her tongue, 
For she did speak in starts distractedly " — 



154 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Four 

with Phebe's short and abrupt answers here. The fruit of her 
gazing is given below, in her description of Rosalind. 

74. Why does Rosalind tell Phebe where to find her? (The 
remark is clearly addressed to Phebe, for Silvius knows her home 
already — cf. 11. 106-107). Perhaps, with a mischievous sense 
of justice, she wants to keep up the " play " a little longer. 

79. And be not proud. Phebe is more harshly drawn by 
Shakespeare than by Lodge. Lodge's Phoebe rejects Montanus 
" not in pride but in disdain," not because she scorns him, but 
because she hates love. Shakespeare has made this change 
to justify the severity of her punishment. 

79-80. Rosalind clinches her advice with a rhyming couplet. 
See Appendix C, p. 181. 

81. shepherd, for poet, in the conventional pastoral manner. 
This convention is in regular use as early as Bion. So in Spen- 
ser's Shepherd's Calendar. The " dead shepherd " is Christo- 
pher Marlowe, who was killed in 1593. 

82. From Marlowe's Hero and Leander : 

" Where both deliberate, the love is slight. 
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight ? " 

(First Sestiad, 1. 176.) 
(See Introduction, p. viii.) 

83-85. Observe the change in Phebe's manner to Silvius. 
90. Alluding to the precept, " love thy neighbor as thyself." 
She turns off Silvius's importunities with an ambiguity and a 
silly jest — not flatly denying him as before, since now she has 
need of him. 

93. " And even now I do not actually love you." 

94. Cf. what Orlando says, iv. 1. 90, " I take some joy to say 
you are, because I would be talking of her." 

103-104. loose . . . A scatter d smile. The metaphor of the 
gleaner is kept up. 

109-135. These lines are the dramatic equivalent of the fa- 
mous song in Lodge called Rosalind's Description — (" Like to 
the clear in highest sphere "). Shakespeare contrives to give 
at once an exquisite description of Rosalind's person and of the 
state of Phebe's heart, vacillating as it is between passion and 
pride. Her resentment is not all assumed, for some of Rosalind's 
taunts have gone home — cf. 11. 128-130. Observe how the un- 
complimentary qualifications gradually sink, and pass into un- 
reserved admiration. 






Scene One] NOTES 155 

113. It is a pretty youth. Observe the contemptuous turn 
given by the it; but in a couple of lines, " He'll make a proper 
man." 

123. mingled damask. Shakespeare uses damask in two 
slightly different senses : (1) of blood red, (£) of mingled red 
and white, as here. In the first sense, he has in mind the dam- 
mask rose; in the second, the varying shades of Damask silk. 
The damask rose is not known to be variegated. 

125. in parcels, piecemeal. 

126. Phebe — unlike the Phoebe of the novel — deliberately 
deceives Silvius. From this point on, Shakespeare treats the 
pastoral subplot more freely, with a half comic touch that is 
wanting in Lodge. In Lodge, Phoebe falls sick of love ; Mon- 
tanus carries her letter, though he suspects the contents, and 
actually intercedes for her with Ganymede. 

129. what had he to do, what business had he. 

131. / am remember 'd, I recollect. See ii. 7. 189. 

133. omittance is no quittance. Evidently a proverb — "a 
debt is not cancelled because you omit to exact it." Cf . Milton, 
Paradise Lost, x. 53, " Forbearance no acquittance." 

136. straight, immediately. 

137-138. A rhyme is probably intended. 

138. passing. Here an adverb = surpassingly. Shake- 
speare also uses it as an adjective. 

ACT IV — SCENE 1 

This scene continues — after an interval — the wooing 
proposed in Act iii, sc. 2, and is conceived in much the same 
spirit. But the intimacy of the lovers has made progress in 
the meantime. In Lodge the mock-marriage, to which this 
scene leads up, takes place immediately after the wooing eclogue 
and at the same meeting. 

1. Jaques, as usual, is in search of company. This is the 
only direct encounter between Jaques and Rosalind, but it 
is long enough to mark effectually the contrast between his 
affected melancholy humor and her natural wit. Jaques' 
manner towards the disguised Rosalind shows Shakespeare's 
fine disregard of prosaic likelihood. An old courtier would 
scarcely take such plain speaking from a shepherd boy. But 
even in disguise Rosalind's womanhood secures a certain 
deference. 



156 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Four 

5. Salarino expresses the same sentiment in The Merchant 
of Venice, i. 1. 51: 

" Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time : 
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes 
And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper, 
And other of such vinegar aspect 
That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, 
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable." 

6. modern, ordinary (cf. ii. 7. 156). 

censure, judgment ; not necessarily adverse. Shakespeare 
uses it in the modern sense in 1. 170 below. 

10. Jaques does not meet Rosalind's criticism any more 
than he met the Duke's (ii. 7. 70) ; but by way of answer 
enlarges fondly on his own pet affectation. This passage is 
decisive as to the nature of his malady. It is not the world- 
sick brooding of Hamlet, still less the passionate world-hate 
of Timon. " The melancholy of Jaques is not grave and 
earnest, but sentimental, a self-indulgent humour, a petted 
foible of character, melancholy prepense and cultivated " 
(Dowden). 

14. politic: i.e. out of pretended sympathy for his client. 

16. a melancholy of mine own. Jaques is a thorough 
egotist. The fact that his melancholy is his own puts it above 
criticism. 

17. simples, the ingredients (usually herbs) of a drug. 

19. my often rumination. F 1 has by. The construction 
(reading my) will be, " My often rumination in which." Often 
is here used as an adjective. 

humorous. Dowden's '* prepense " comes very near the 
meaning. 

27. To Rosalind's healthy mind it seems that such experi- 
ence as Jaques' is not worth the price he has paid for it. 

31. An interesting line, as showing Shakespeare's conscious- 
ness of the difference between prose and verse in dialogue, for 
which see Appendix C, p. 177. Cf. Falstaff's burlesque rise 
to verse in 1 Henry IV, ii. 4. 431 ; 2 Henry IV, v. 3. 105. 

The Exit — not marked in F 1 — is marked here in the other 
folios. Rosalind punishes Orlando's unpunctuality by ignor- 
ing his presence, and by flinging taunts after the retreating 
Jaques. 



Scene One] NOTES 157 

34. lisp and wear strange suits. For similar attacks on 
contemporary affectations, cf. Romeo and Juliet, ii. 4. 29, 
" The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes " ; and 
The Merchant of Venice, i. 2. 79-82, where Portia says of her 
English suitor : " How oddly he is suited ! I think he bought 
his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in 
Germany, and his behaviour everywhere." 

disable, disparage; benefits, advantages. 

38. swam in a gondola, i.e. been in Venice. Writers like 
Ascham denounced Italy as a school of vice ; the other side of 
the question is represented by the vigorous Italian proverb 

— " Inglese Italianato e un diabolo incarnato," " An English- 
man Italianate is a Devil incarnate." Swam, past for p. part. 

— a license not uncommon in Shakespeare. 

48. clapped him o' the shoulder. The general meaning is 
plain : Orlando may be touched, but his passion is not serious. 
But the exact metaphor is not clear — patted by way of en- 
couragement ? or tapped by way of arrest ? Perhaps — as 
Cupid is an archer — it is used as in 2 Henry IV, iii. 2. 51, 
" clapped i' the clout," — a term of archery, — meaning that 
Orlando is " winged." 

65. jointure, marriage settlement. 

61. prevents. Here used in the sense of the Lat. praevenire, 
to anticipate. 

66. Celia for once puts in a word of her own accord ; but it 
is characteristically addressed to Rosalind. 

73. You were better. Cf. i. 1. 126. 

74. gravelled, embarrassed. 

76. out, at a loss. 

77. God warn us, God save us. See Glossary under warrant. 
77-78. the cleanliest shift, the best way out of it. 

85. honesty, chastity, as in iii. 3. 30, etc. 

ranker, better grown. The meaning is, " If I can't discom- 
fit you, I shall think myself more chaste than witty." 

90. Cf. iii. 5. 95. Orlando says just what he ought to say, 
and Rosalind dashes into a witty declamation against dying 
for love. 

94. attorney, here in the true legal sense of deputy or proxy. 
For derivation see Glossary. 

96. There was not, there has not been. Cf. iii. 1. 1. And 
for the so-called " omission of the relative," see note on i. 2. 149. 

97. Troilus, the lover of Cressida, who deserted him for the 



158 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Four 

Greek Diomed. He is the hero of Shakespeare's Troilus and 
Cressida. In classic story he was killed by Achilles ; the Grecian 
club, like Leander's cramp, is invented by Rosalind in a spirit 
of resolute common sense. 

100. Leander, he. This insertion of a pronoun, commonest 
after a proper name (Abbott, § 243), converts the noun into 
a sort of exclamation — " as for Leander." Leander lived at 
Abydos, across the Hellespont from Sestos, and to visit Hero 
he was obliged to swim the strait. Their story is told in Greek 
by Musseus (?), translated by Marlowe, and completed by 
Chapman. 

105. chroniclers. Hanmer corrected to coroners, because 
of the verb found. But (1) the jest is equally good as it stands ; 
(2) there would be only one coroner ; and (3) the Shakespearean 
form is not coroner but crowner. 

110. Tenderness almost surprises Rosalind out of her part, 
but she recovers herself. 

116. Fridays and Saturdays and all. This is explained as 
" fasting-days and all," but it is merely light nonsense to cover 
real feeling. 

124. Observe that it is Rosalind who proposes the mock 
marriage. In Lodge, the suggestion comes from Alinda 
(Celia). The change is typical of the increased prominence 
which Shakespeare gives to the part of Rosalind. 

138. Your commission, your warrant for " taking " me to 
wife. 

139. Note the emphatic form of words. Rosalind speaks in 
all seriousness here; she has plighted her troth. 

140. there's a girl goes . . . , meaning that she has antici- 
pated what Celia should have dictated. 

146. Another coruscation of assumed scepticism, elicited 
by Orlando's correct " For ever and a day." 

151. a Barbary cock-pigeon. The epithet suggests oriental 
jealousy (Furness). 

152. against, before, in expectation of. 

154. Diana in the fountain. See Introduction, p. viii. 
But probably Shakespeare has no particular figure in mind. 
Weeping Dianas were a common ornament of fountains. 

156. hyen, hyena, whose bark was thought to resemble a 
laugh. " He cometh to houses by night, and feineth mannes 
voyce " (Bartholomseus). 

159. Another double entendre; but Orlando suspects nothing. 



Scene One] NOTES 159 

162. the wiser the waywarder. Rosalind seems to agree 
with the wife of Bath, that women love most " dominacioun," 
and their waywardness is only a contrivance to get their own 
way. 

make, shut. Cf. German machen zu. The expression sur- 
vives in Yorkshire and Leicestershire dialect. 

168. A proverbial expression: "What are you after?" 
Cf. i. 2. 59. 

177-178. her husband's occasion, an occasion against her 
husband (objective genitive), rather than, occasioned by her 
husband. 

182. This is unguarded tenderness, but Orlando takes it for 
good acting, and his commonplace reply gives Rosalind time 
to resume the boy. 

193. See Introduction, p. viii. 

196. pathetical. A word (intentionally or unintentionally) 
misused by Shakespeare for anything striking, shocking, 
"awful." Armado and Costard use it (L. L. L. i. 2. 103; 
iv. 1. 150). Perhaps Shakespeare had no very definite notion 
of its meaning himself. See note on anatomized, ii. 7. 56. 

201. religion, strict observance; the sense of "binding" 
is the original one. 

203. A literal expansion of the phrase, " Time tries all." 

205. misused, abused. In some of their senses (reviling 
and maltreating) misuse and abuse have changed places in 
Md. E. 

206. This is from Lodge — " And I pray you, quoth Aliena, 
if your robes were off, what mettle are you made of that you 
are so satirical against women? is it not a foul bird that defiles 
its own nest ? " . . . " Leave off, said Aliena, to taunt thus 
bitterly, or else I'll pull off your page's apparel." 

210. fathom. For this form of the plural, see note on iii. 2. 
335. 

212-213. the bay of Portugal, a name " still used by sailors 
to denote that portion of the sea off the coast of Portugal from 
Oporto to the headland of Cintra " (Wright). The water 
here is 1400 fathoms deep within 40 miles of the shore. 

217. thought, melancholy brooding. 

spleen, caprice — another piece of Elizabethan physiology. 

219. abuses, deceives. Cf. iii. 5. 80. Meaning that love 
is blind. 

222. shadow, a shady place. 



160 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Four 

SCENE 2 

This scene is a sylvan interlude, intended to fill up the two 
hours of Orlando's absence. 

3-4. like a Roman conqueror: alluding to the triumphal 
return of a victorious general. This Roman practice — like 
everything about that great people — seems to have appealed 
to Shakespeare's imagination. 

5-6. a branch of victory. Jaques probably intends a pun; 
branch is used for the antlers of the deer. Cf. Tennyson, 
Princess (Conclusion), " and shook the branches of the deer." 

12. Cf . Lodge — " What news, forester ? hast thou wounded 
some deer, and lost him in the fall ? Care not, man, for so 
small a loss; thy fees was but the skin, the shoulder, and the 
horns." 

13. Ff have: Then sing him home, the rest shall bear this 
burthen. Theobald saw that the latter half of the line was a 
stage direction. Bear this burden = sing this refrain. 

14. Take thou no scorn, be not ashamed. 

SCENE 3 

This scene falls naturally into two parts, the letter brought 
by Silvius and the message brought by Oliver. Shakespeare 
still follows Lodge closely in the incidents ; but (1) the order 
is inverted ; (2) Rosalind's reception of Phebe's letter is differ- 
ently conceived ; (3) Oliver is made to narrate his own rescue ; 
and (4) the occasion of his message is transferred (see Intro- 
duction, p. xii). 

2. here much Orlando! ironical. 

4-5. Celia gives the sentence an unexpected turn (-waph. 
Trpoa-doKlav) " to sleep " instead of " to hunt." 

12. as, in the capacity of ; almost tautologous. 

13. Rosalind opens the letter, and finds a declaration. To 
cover her surprise, she seizes on Silvius' s guess as to the con- 
tents, and continues in this strain while reading. The " Well, 
shepherd, well " of 1. 19 marks that she has reached the end. 

16. and that she could. A verb of saying is to be under- 
stood from the preceding " calls " ; this idiom is common in 
Greek. 

17. phcenix, a fabulous bird of Arabia. There was only one 
at a time; it lived 500 years, and was reborn from its own 
ashes. 



Scene Three] NOTES 161 

20. In the novel, Rosalind, after reading the letter, leads 
Montanus to confess his love, and then shows that it is hopeless. 
Here, she seems to wish to cure Silvius by rousing his indigna- 
tion, if possible. 

25. freestone-colour'd, of a dirty brown. 

27. a huswife's hand, i.e. hard with housework. 

29. invention, conception. Cf. ii. 5. 49. 

hand, handwriting, with a pun. 

31-36. Rosalind works up to a climax the picture of Phebe's 
imaginary scorn, and by the contrast brings out effectively the 
utter abandon of her surrender. 

34. giant-rude. This is one of the compound adjectives 
freely coined by Shakespeare. The first part of the compound 
has the force of an adverb. 

35. Ethiope. Not elsewhere used as an adjective. 
39. She Phebes me, plays the Phebe to me. 

48. vengeance, mischief, not revenge; in this sense com- 
monly used as a curse — " vengeance on you." 

49. Phebe, of course, means that Rosalind is a god. 

50. eyne, eyes. Shakespeare uses this archaic plural only 
in rhymed passages, as a conventional poetic form. 

53. in mild aspect. Here, as in iii. 2. 157-162, the metaphor 
is astrological, aspect — the appearance of a planet. For the 
accent, see Appendix C, p. 181. 

59. youth and kind, youthful nature — a hendiadys ; kind 
here almost = sex. 

61. make, produce by my work, earn. 

65-66. Celia's pity and Rosalind's indignation are equally char- 
acteristic. To Rosalind's vigorous common sense, Silvius's hope- 
less devotion seems unmanly, she herself being fortunate in love. 

68. an instrument. Used here in the twofold sense of a tool 
and a musical instrument. The metaphor is worked out in 
Hamlet, iii. 2. 380-389, " You would play upon me," etc. 

70. a tame snake. " Snake " is a common expression of 
contempt in E. E. 

73. unless thou entreat for her. This in the novel Mon- 
tanus actually does. Silvius is now dismissed.. 

76. fair ones. If this is not a misprint, it is a curious slip 
on Shakespeare's part. 

79. By a fine touch, Celia, who was dumb in Orlando's 
presence, is addressed by and answers Oliver. 

79-80. neighbour bottom, neighboring dell (subst. as adj.). 



162 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Foub 

80. rank, row. See iii. 2. 103. 

■81. left is here a participle — being left. 

87. bestows himself, behaves. 

88. This line has been suspected on account of the halting 
meter. But the omission of the third stress, though rare, is 
not unexampled. See Appendix C, p. 179. 

89-90. Oliver addresses his question to Celia, in the singu- 
lar; in her reply she speaks for both. 

94. napkin, quite equivalent to handkerchief in E. E. 

98. handkercher. This spelling represents a common pro- 
nunciation. 

99-157. Shakespeare has two reasons for having Oliver 
narrate his rescue, instead of representing it directly : (1) 
the lioness and the snake could not have been put on the 
stage; (2) the effect of the rescue on Oliver's mind, its effect 
in promoting his " conversion," is what Shakespeare is most 
interested to show; and this is best insured by making him 
the narrator. This conversion of Oliver's has always been 
regarded as one of the weakest points in the play ; it is made at 
least more plausible by Shakespeare's indirect rendering. See 
Introduction, p. xiv. 

105. Under an oak. Ff read Under an old oak. This is 
not metrically impossible; but the adjective is worse than 
superfluous. The correction is Pope's. Compare this with 
the brookside oak described in ii. 1. 31-32; the two pictures 
are quite distinct. 

107. A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair. These 
details are added by Shakespeare, not only to excite compassion 
for Oliver, but also to indicate the length of his wanderings. 
See Introduction, p. xiv. 

109. The " green and gilded snake " is another vivid detail 
added by Shakespeare. 

113. indented glides. An admirable description of the 
sinuous zigzag of the serpent's path. 

115. Again Shakespeare heightens the effect by making the 
lion of the novel a lioness, sucked and hungry. 

122. Celia's interest in Oliver had already been excited by 
Orlando's conversation. 

123. render, describe as. 

126. But, to Orlando, but to come to Orlando. Rosalind is 
not interested in Oliver's unnatural conduct; she wishes to 
know whether or not Orlando has acted nobly. 



Scene Three] NOTES 163 

128. This line represents a " meditation " of two pages in 
the novel. 

130. his just occasion, his fair chance of revenge. 

132. hurtling, crashing, din of fight. 

133. Oliver's identity is naturally and effectively revealed 
by the pronoun in the last line of his speech. 

135. contrive, plot. The expression would now mean 
" manage to kill him " ; but contrive in E. E. does not imply 
success. 

136. do not shame, am not ashamed. 

139. Again Rosalind recalls Oliver to the subject of Orlando. 

140. In the novel, Rosader does not reveal who he is until 
Saladin has made a full confession of his sins. 

141. recountments, narratives; a noun coined from the 
verb, but not elsewhere found in Shakespeare. 

142. As, for instance. This, and not " namely," is the true 
meaning here. Oliver breaks off with " In brief — . " 

148. In the novel, Rosader is wounded in rescuing Alinda 
from the robbers, and Saladin merely brings word of his con- 
valescence. The transference here enables Shakespeare to 
introduce the " bloody napkin " and by means of it Rosalind's 
telltale swoon. 

151. Brief, to be brief. 

recover d, restored him (from his faint). 

156. his blood. So F 2, F 3, and F 4. F 1 has this blood. 

158. sweet Ganymede; 160. Cousin Ganymede. Celia 
almost betrays Rosalind's secret in her alarm. 

163. Rosalind's faint thus becomes an excuse for further 
intimacy between Oliver and Celia. 

166. Ah, sirrah. The form sirrah usually implies disre- 
spect ; but sometimes, when preceded by ah, it forms part of a 
soliloquy, and is little more than an exclamation. 

168. a body, a person. This use of body is now confined to 
dialect, except in the compounds somebody, anybody, nobody; 
but was good English in Shakespeare's time. 

172. a passion of earnest, a real attack. Passion is used 
more widely in E. E. of any strong and overmastering 
feeling. 

181. Oliver's significant " Rosalind " seems to show that 
he suspects something. Remember that he knew of the prin- 
cesses' flight. But his suspicions are of no consequence, so 
long as he does not tell Orlando . 



164 



AS YOTJ LIKE IT 



[Act Five 



ACT V — SCENE 1 

One reconciliation has already been effected, that between 
Oliver and Orlando. Only one more revelation and one more 
reconciliation are needed " to make all doubts even " ; but 
these are inevitably postponed to the last scene. To this last 
scene the second is preparatory; the third is another of those 
short lyrical interludes which here and there relieve the action ; 
the first is a comic, almost farcical, prelude, which comes in 
aptly after the somewhat grave close of Act iv, and forms a 
transition to the jubilant and masque-like wedding-scene. 

11. it is meat and drink to me. " As good as a feast," we 
might say. The expression was proverbial. 

12. Touchstone's complacent consciousness of his own parts 
gives an odd cast to his reflections on the same trait in William. 

13. shall, must. For this sense of obligation which clings 
to shall, see note on i. 1. 134. 

16. God ye good even, i.e. God give you good even ; further 
abbreviated to Godgigoden, Godden. 

18. Compare Touchstone's manner on the appearance of 
Jaques in iii. 3. 

37. This figure may have been suggested by Lodge : "Phoebe 
is no latice for your lips, and her grapes hang so high, that 
gaze at them you may, but touch them you cannot." 

38-39. Such parodies of learning were evidently a favorite 
item in the repertoire of the professional wit. The point of 
Touchstone's figure is that they can't both have her. 

48. ipse, Lat. he himself. 

51. Touchstone suddenly abandons his friendly patronizing 
air and turns on the oaf with a torrent of high-sounding threats. 
Several turns of phrase recall Don Armado ; cf. Love's Labour's 
Lost, i. 1. 267: "a female; or, for thy more sweet understand- 
ing, a woman." 

65. God rest you merry : a common wish, especially at 
parting. God is often omitted. 

66. seeks. Singular verb after two subjects ; cf . Abbott, 
§ 336. 

SCENE 2 

This scene is wholly preparatory for the final recognition 
and denouement in scene iv. As such, it is somewhat bare 
and business-like, but at least economical and clear. The com- 



Scene Two] NOTES 165 

position of the wedding scene is foreshadowed in the grace and 
balanced grouping of the close. 

3. wooing. Absolute participle, without noun. 

4. per sever: so regularly spelled and accented in Shake- 
speare. 

10. The relations of the brothers are now so far inverted 
that Oliver asks Orlando's consent to his marriage. 

13. estate, bestow. The offer ignores the Duke's seizure, 
but serves as earnest of Oliver's conversion. 

20-21. Rosalind calls Oliver " brother " as Celia's lover; he 
calls her " sister " in reference to her masquerade. 

32. / know where you are, I know what you mean. Afraid, 
perhaps, that Orlando may ask awkward questions about her 
swoon, Rosalind dashes characteristically into a humorously 
exaggerated account of the sudden attachment between Oliver 
and Celia. This speech of hers is Shakespeare's apology for 
his treatment of their hasty wooing. In the novel it forms an 
episode of some length. But Shakespeare probably felt that 
it would be hard to make it probable or pleasing on the stage ; 
he evades the difficulty, and masks the weak place by the present 
speech. 

35. / came, saw, and overcame: veni, vidi, vici — Caesar's 
famous despatch after defeating Pharnaces at Zela, B.C. 47. 
Shakespeare seems to have been struck with it ; he quotes it in 
three other places, giving the Latin in Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 
1. 68, and always translates as here. No character in history 
interested him so much as " the hook nosed fellow of Rome." 

41. degrees: with a play on the literal sense of " steps." 

44. wrath, impetuosity, properly of combat — the lovers 
being humorously represented as trying to get at each other. 
" Clubs, clubs " was the rallying cry of the London appren- 
tices, who used these weapons (they could not carry swords) 
to keep the peace, or to break it. See Scott's Fortunes of 
Nigel, c. 1. 

46. The marriage of Oliver and Celia has been vigorously 
denounced as an ugly concession to the practice of pairing off 
the characters. But the true bone of contention must be the 
reality of Oliver's conversion, of which his marriage is the seal. 

47. nuptial. So generally, perhaps always, in Shakespeare. 
This word is properly an adjective. 

61. insomuch, inasmuch as, because — only here in Shake- 
speare. 



166 



AS YOU LIKE IT 



[Act Five 



66. conversed, associated. This is the common meaning 
in Shakespeare, though he also uses it in the more limited 
modern sense. 

67. Orlando in v. 4. 32 identifies this magician with the 
uncle whom Rosalind had mentioned in iii. 2. 362. This may 
be a slip of Shakespeare's. In Lodge, the magician is spoken 
of simply as a " friend." 

68. See Introduction, p. viii. Rosalind's magician is a 
" white witch." 

69. cries it out, proclaims. For the use of it, cf. note on 
i. 3. 125. 

74. human as she is: i.e. no phantom but the real Rosalind 
without any of the dangers that attend magic rites. 

77. tender dearly, value highly. 

82. With the entrance of Silvius and Phebe, the dialogue 
changes at once to verse. 

102, 104. observance, homage. In one or other of the 
lines — probably the latter — the word is a misprint, but no 
convincing emendation has been suggested. Malone's " obe- 
dience " is as good as any. 

110. to love you, for loving you — the gerundial infinitive. 
Cf. note on i. 1. 115. 

115. why . . . too. So the Ff; corrected by Rowe to 
who . . . to for the sake of harmony. But no change is 
necessary. 

118-119. 'tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the 
moon. The simile is suggested by Lodge — ** thou barkest 
with the wolves of Syria against the moon." But Lodge's 
expression means " to cry for what you can't get " ; Rosalind 
here is referring merely to their discordant clamor. The wolf, 
though extinct in England, was still found in Ireland, and this 
may have suggested the epithet; or the point may lie (as 
Deighton thinks) in the harshness of the Irish language. Ire- 
land was much in men's minds at the time. 



SCENE 3 

We probably owe this little interlude originally to stage 
requirements, but it justifies its insertion by a freshness of its 
own, and forms a sort of good-by to the forest life in which the 
action has moved so long. 

4. dishonest, immodest. See Glossary under honest. 



Scene Four] NOTES 167 

5. to be a woman of the world = to be married. Shake- 
speare twice uses the phrase " to go to the world " for to be 
married — Much Ado, ii. 1. 331 ; All's Well, i. 3. 20 — the idea 
being that marriage is a woman's start in life. 

11. clap into 't roundly, set about it straight away. From 
the sense of " complete," round is used widely for unqualified, 
straightforward, without ceremony. 

13. the only prologues, only the prologues. For the inver- 
sion of only, cf. note on i. 2. 203. 

16-34. In the Ff, the last stanza of this song is printed 
second. The present arrangement, which is obviously the 
right one, is given by Morley (see Introduction, p. vii), and in 
a MS. in the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh. The disloca- 
tion has not been explained. 

20. the only pretty ring time, the season for marriage. 
Ff have rang time; corrected from the MS. 

23. acres. Here, and generally in Shakespeare, the word 
is used in its literal sense of fields. 

25. folks. Fools in the MS. 

31. The MS. reads : Then pretty lovers take the time. The 
moral of the ditty is the same as that of the song in Twelfth 
Night — " Youth's a stuff will not endure." 

35-37. Instead of qualifying his condemnation of the sense 
by praise of the tune, as he leads them to expect, Touchstone 
condemns tune and all. 

37. untuneable. Cowden-Clarke says that tune and time 
were once synonymous. At any rate, the pages defend their 
time, and so lay themselves open to Touchstone once more. 

SCENE 4 

The conception of this scene is in the main original. The 
divergence from Lodge in the matter of the usurper's conversion 
has been noticed in the Introduction. In the novel, the most 
prominent figure in the scene before the nuptials is Montanus ; 
in the play it is Touchstone. The difference is characteristic. 
A good deal of unfavorable criticism has been bestowed on the 
finish of the play; but Shakespeare often prefers to touch in 
the denouement lightly, though the execution here is scarcely 
in his best style. 

4. " As those who fear that their hope is only a hope, but 
know for certain that they fear." Various attempts have 



168 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Five 

been made to emend this difficult line ; but no change is neces- 
sary. 

5. compact. For the accent, see Appendix C, p. 182. 

6. The arrangement and declaration on Orlando's part* 
here presupposed, are first made at this point in the novel. 

13-14. This bargain (also presupposed) is made on an earlier oc- 
casion in the novel, but is postponed till this point by Shakespeare, 
in order to set it off against the similar bargain with Orlando. 

22. or else . . . to wed. This is another instance of that 
absolute use of the infinitive, explained in note on iii. 2. 162. 

27. lively, lifelike. 

28-34. This speech of Orlando's should settle at once the 
absurd idea that he had recognized Rosalind. 

32. desperate, dangerous, as tampering with forbidden arts. 

34. obscured, hidden. The expression may have been sug- 
gested by the invisibilityof magicians within their charmed circles. 

35-113. The dramatic purpose of this comic dialogue is 
evidently to give time for the preparation of the pageant which 
enters at 1. 98. 

35. toward, approaching. 

39. salutation and greeting. Another instance of bilingual- 
ism; see note on i. 1. 72. Touchstone has donned his best 
vocabulary for the occasion. 

45. purgation, proof; properly exculpation, as in i. 3. 55 
(see note ad loc.) ; but Touchstone misapplies the word, as 
does Costard in Loves Labour's Lost, iii. 1. 128, " and now you 
will be my purgation." 

measure, a stately dance, somewhat like a minuet. 

49. and like, and was likely. 

50. ta'en up, settled. 

56. Touchstone's remarks have so far been addressed to 
Jaques, in the independent tone of an equal. Observe the sudden 
and overwhelming deference with which he "sirs" the Duke. 

God 'ild you. Cf. note on iii. 3. 76. 

/ desire you of the like, I wish the same to you. In E. E. 
it was possible to say, " I desire you of something," as well as 
" I desire something of you." 

68. copulatives, people wishing to be married. Such is the 
force of the termination here; but the word is coined for the 
nonce by Touchstone. 

59. blood, passion — constantly opposed in this sense to 
judgment, wisdom, and the like. 



Scene Foub] NOTES 169 

63. For this use of your = iste, see note on iii. 2. 56. 

67. the fool's bolt. " A fool's bolt is soon shot," says the 
proverb. A bolt was a blunt arrow used for killing birds, etc. 

68. such dulcet diseases. Touchstone's vocabulary is too 
much for him again. 

69. Jaques returns to the charge, wishing to exhibit Touch- 
stone in his best vein of fooling to the Duke. 

71. a lie seven times removed. Malone's explanation — 
if it be not pedantic to explain Touchstone — seems the right 
one. The Lie Direct is the Lie Proper ; the others are diluted 
forms of lie, "removed" from it in various degrees. In Touch- 
stone's case, the quarrel was found to originate in a mild con- 
tradiction — the Retort Courteous — seven times removed 
from the Lie Direct. 

72. seeming, seemingly (adj. for adv.). 

73. dislike, express my dislike of. For similar changes of 
meaning, from feeling to expression or action, cf . disable (11. 79- 
80 below), to disparage; defy (Epilogue, 1. 21), to dislike. 

78. quip, a jest at one's expense. Milton's much-quoted 
" Quips and cranks and wanton wiles " has preserved the word 
to modern English. 

84. countercheck, rebuff; the metaphor is from chess 
(Wright). 

91. Swords are measured before a duel, to find if they are of 
equal length. Touchstone and his adversary measured them 
— and parted. 

94. Shakespeare is usually supposed to be referring here to a 
treatise on dueling by Vincentio Saviolo (1595), the second 
book of which deals with Honor and honorable Quarrels. But 
the resemblance between Touchstone's Lies and Saviolo's is 
not very close ; if Shakespeare had any particular book in view 
it may equally well have been, as Furness thinks, The Book of 
Honor and Arms (1590). 

95. books for good manners, books of etiquette. There were 
many such then, as now — e.g. Whittinton's Lytle Booke of 
Good Maners for Chyldren (1554). 

103. / knew. Modern usage would require the perfect tense. 

107. swore brothers. The expression alludes to the fratres 
jurati (sworn brothers) of the days of chivalry — warriors who 
swore to share each other's fortunes. A relic of the custom 
survives, says Professor Herford, in the German custom of 
Bruderschaft, 



170 AS YOU LIKE IT [Act Five 

111. This characteristic observation of the Duke's reminds 
us of the directly satirical intention of Touchstone's wit. It 
is a hit at a contemporary affectation. 

stalking-horse, a real or an artificial horse, under cover of 
which sportsmen approached their game. 

112. under the presentation, under cover, presenting it 
before him. The word is used in a somewhat different sense, 
show > <.isubstance, in Richard III, iv. 4. 84. 

Still Music, soft music. 

114. Critics have objected to the introduction of Hymen as 
on a different level of convention from the rest of the piece. 
But the pageant, as Dr. Johnson pointed out, is contrived by 
Rosalind as the magic machinery that restores her to her father. 

116. atone, are at one. Shakespeare also uses the word 
transitively, to reconcile. See Glossary. 

121. her bosom. The Ff and the Globe have his, which I 
do not understand. 

130. Rosalind has been the moving spirit of the last three 
acts, sustaining the dialogue and guiding the various strands 
of plot. Now that she has made all doubts even, she gives 
herself to her father and her lover, and says no more. 

131. bar, prohibit. 

136. If truth holds true contents, if truth be true. This 
speech of Hymen's, and the following song, have been sus- 
pected, but on no evidence except their general feebleness. 
It must be admitted that the execution of this scene is not up 
to the level of the earlier acts, at least in the verse part. 

140. to, for, as still in " have to wife." 

141. sure together, a sure match. 

143. wedlock-hymn. In Shakespeare's days music formed 
a regular part of wedding ceremonies. Wright compares the 
similar pageant in The Tempest. 

147. Juno's crown. Juno, the queen of the gods, presided 
over wedlock. 

150. high, solemn. 

154. Even daughter, my daughter equally with Rosalind. 
The sense of equally, likewise, is more in place here than the 
ordinary " corrective " sense — " my niece, nay, my daughter " 
— though this is possible. 

156. " Thy fidelity knits my love to thee." For this sense 
of combine = to bind, cf. Measure for Measure, iv. 3. 149, 
" I am combined by a sacred vow." 



Scene Foue] NOTES 171 

157-172. Attention has been called in the Introduction to 
this important departure from the novel. The action has 
been steeped so long in the atmosphere of Arden that an incur- 
sion of the evil passions which dominate the first act would 
be felt as a grave breach of harmony One of the evil prin- 
ciples has already been reconciled by the conversion of Oliver, 
and Shakespeare now eliminates the other by similar means. 
The Duke's conversion is narrated, because it does not admit of 
dramatic treatment. Moreover, by being presented thus 
indirectly, the fact is kept remote, and felt only as a cloud that 
has passed away. Jaques de Boys merely discharges the 
function of the &yye\os of Greek tragedy. 

162. Address'd a mighty power, prepared a great force. 

163. in his own conduct, under his own leadership. 
167. question, conversation. 

was converted. A subject is supplied from 1. 165. 
170. all their lands restored. " Were " may be supplied, 
but the construction is probably nominative absolute. 

172. The elder Duke accepts the return of fortune in the 
same philosophic spirit in which he endured adversity. 

173. offer' st fairly, makest a handsome present. 
176. do those ends, accomplish those purposes. 

178. every, every one. Cf. any as pronoun, i. 1. 149. 

181. states, fortunes — " estates " in the wider sense. 

186. by your patience, by your leave. This sentence is 
addressed to the Duke. 

188. pompous, ceremonious. 

190. In this way Jaques, like the usurper, though for a dif- 
ferent reason, is eliminated from the " better world " which 
the Duke's return inaugurates. 

convertites. This is the E. E. form of converts. 

192. The real courtesy which prompts these good wishes 
forbids us to take too harsh a view of Jaques. He is a gentle- 
man spoiled. His sarcasm is reserved for Touchstone, who is 
fair game. 

You to your former honour I bequeath. Schmidt cites 
this as an instance of a phrase in which the whole relation of 
ideas is inverted = I bequeath your honor to you. Such 
inversion is naturally most common in verbs of joining and 
separating. 

193. deserves. Cf. note on v. 1. 66. 



172 AS YOU LIKE IT 



EPILOGUE 

Spoken in his own person by the boy-actor who played 
Rosalind. 

1. It is not the fashion, etc. Not before the Restoration 
was it common to assign Prologue or Epilogue to characters 
in the play ; in The Tempest, however, the Epilogue is spoken 
by Prospero, and in All's Well by the King. For a female 
character to speak the Prologue was a novelty in 1609 : " A 
She-Prologue is as rare as a usurer's alms," Prologue to Every 
Woman in Her Humour. (From G. S. B., The Prologue and 
Epilogue.) 

2. unhandsome, in bad taste. 

3-4. Good wine needs no bush. An ivy bush was the sign 
of a vintner — ivy being sacred to Bacchus, the god of wine. 
The custom still survives in parts of Germany, and in England. 
The Bush Inn is still no uncommon name for a tavern. The 
proverb means that good things do not need to be advertised. 

9. insinuate, ingratiate myself. 

12-18. The sense of this nonsense seems to be : let each one 
like what pleases him or her, and so among you all the play 
will please everybody. 

14. as please you. Please is subjunctive, used definitely 
after relatives = as may please. 

18. If I were a woman. Women's parts, on the public 
stage, were not regularly taken by women until after the Resto- 
ration, though they had acted before in masques and private 
theatricals. " The innovation had been made tentatively, 
and with some secrecy, and the practice was formally legalized 
by Royal Patent in 1662" (Ward, English Drama, ii. 422). 
The tables have been turned at last : a few years ago As You 
Like It was played in London by a company consisting entirely 
of women. " The general effect," said the newspapers, " was 
less unpleasant than might have been expected." 

20. liked, pleased. Originally impersonal : it likes me, a 
usage which lasted into the 16th century. Hence two others 
(1) personal — other subjects instead of it; but in Shakespeare 
in the sense of please the impersonal use is common ; (2) " I 
like it," i.e. find it pleasing — a change of meaning helped by 
French. Cf. please. 

21. defied, disliked. See note on v. 4. 73. 



APPENDIX A 

HAD SHAKESPEARE READ THE TALE OF GAMELYN? 

Most critics think not. " The old bard," says Farmer, " was no 
hunter of MSS.," and the Tale is not known to have been printed 
till 1721. It is no argument that Lodge had read it; Lodge was a 
man of university training ; he had been a servitor at Trinity Col- 
lege, Oxford, and may there have acquired habits of research. 

On the other side, Knight argues that Lodge's novel was written 
at sea. Yet he follows the Tale so closely that we can hardly help 
thinking (urges Knight) that he must have had a copy of it before him. 
If this were so, then the Tale must have been more widely diffused 
(in MS. or broadsheet) than is commonly imagined. We may, 
therefore, give up our prejudice on that head, and judge the question 
by the evidence. 

The following are the chief points of comparison, and of these I 
attach most importance to (3) and (6). 

(1) Sir Johan is at first advised to leave all to his eldest son. 

(2) Johan "feeds " Gamelyn " yvel and eek wrothe." So Orlando 
says that Oliver's horses " are fair with their feeding " ; " he lets me 
feed with his hinds " (i. 1. 12, 20). 

(3) When called a " gadelyng," Gamelyn retorts : 

" Cristes curs mot he have that clepeth me gadelyng. 
I am no worse gadelyng, ne no worse wight, 
But born of a lady, and geten of a knight." 

So Orlando : "lam no villain ; I am the youngest son of Sir Row- 
land de Boys ; he was my father, and he is thrice a villain that says 
such a father begot villains " (i. 1. 59). 

(4) Johan prays that Gamelyn may break his neck in the wres- 
tling ; Oliver tells Charles — 

" I had as lief thou dist break his neck as his finger " 

(i. 1. 152-153). 

(5) In the Tale, as in the play, the Franklin bemoans his sons ; in 
the novel he is stoical. 

173 



174 APPENDIX A 

(6) When the wardens of the wrestling tell Gamelyn that the fair 
is over, he replies : 

" I have not yet halvendel [half] sold up my ware." 

So Orlando : 

" I am not yet well breathed " (i. 2. 229-230). 

To sum up : (a) In the absence of evidence, it would be antece- 
dently improbable that Shakespeare had read the Tale. (6) The 
resemblance between the Tale and the novel is not strong enough to 
support Knight's conclusion. It is confined to points of incident, 
and may prove no more than that Lodge had a good memory, 
(c) The resemblance between the Tale and the play, on the other 
hand, is mainly in points of expression. Some of those are plainly 
accidental; and though the coincidence in (3) and (6) is striking, 
it is no more than might naturally happen when two poets are 
treating the same incident independently. 



APPENDIX B 

ON SOME SUPPOSED INCONSISTENCIES IN ACT I 

In support of his view that the play was hurriedly finished, Mr. 
Wright adduces the following " marks of hasty work " : 

(1) The name of Jaques de Boys. When he comes in in Act v, 
he is called " Second Brother," to distinguish him from the melan- 
choly Jaques. 

(2) Ini. 2. 87-89, Flhas: 

" Clo. One that old Fredericke your Father loues. 
Ros. My Father's loue is enough to honor him." 

From i. 2. 246 and v. 4. 160 it appears that Frederick is the name 
of the usurping Duke. 

(3) Ini. 2. 284, Flhas: 

" But yet indeed the taller is his (i.e. the usurper's) daughter," 

whereas in i. 3. 117 Rosalind says she is " more than common tall " ; 
and in iv. 3. 88 she is clearly declared to be taller than Celia. 

(4) In i. 2. 301, Orlando exclaims, " But heavenly Rosalind," 
though he has just been asking Le Beau which was which. 

(5) " Nor is Touchstone," says Mr. Wright, " at all what we are 
prepared to expect from the early description of him as ' the clown- 
ish fool ' and the * roynish clown.' " 

(6) In i. 8. 77, the swan which belongs to Venus is given to Juno. 

Such are Mr. Wright's points. (1) and (6) we may at once con- 
cede (see note ad loc). (2) may well be a printer's error — Ros. for 
Cel. Walker has a list of sixty such mistakes in F 1 — two others 
from our play. (4) proves nothing; Orlando would know Rosa- 
lind's name though he did not know her by sight. Oliver knows 
the name — " Can you tell (he asks) if Rosalind, the duke's 
daughter, be banished with her father? " (i. 1. 110). 

Nor is there much force in (5). It must not be forgotten that 
this is Shakespeare's first essay in treating the professional fool. 
Touchstone is a court jester, and in i. 2 he is still at court and labor- 
ing in his vocation. It is not until he finds himself among rustics that 

175 



176 APPENDIX B 

he begins to air his manners. " It is meat and drink to me to see 
a clown." Mr. Furness actually suggests that Shakespeare based 
As You Like It on an older play, which crops out (he thinks) in this 
scene (i. 2). But the scene is undoubtedly Shakespeare's, though 
not perhaps in his best manner ; and I can see no radical difference 
between the humor of " pancakes and mustard " and the humor of 
" batlets and peascods." 

It is not so easy to explain away (3). " Taller " can hardly be a 
printer's error. But contradictions of a similar kind are far from 
rare in Elizabethan drama. 

It should be observed that all these (real or supposed) inconsist- 
encies occur in the first act, and all but two in the second scene of 
that act. It is possible that Shakespeare may here have laid down 
his pen, and resumed his work at a later date. No such careless 
touches mar the forest scenes. It is on " the airy column," not on 
" the massive pedestal," that he has lavished his care. In any case, 
he cannot have revised the play for the press. Other indications 
— brought out in the notes — seem to show that the text of 1623 
was printed from a stage copy. 



APPENDIX C 

METRE 

Orl. Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind ! 

Jaq. Nay then, God be wi' you, and you talk in blank verse. 

1. Definitions — Verse, Prose, Blank Verse 

In reading any composition, a certain stress is laid on syllables 
at various intervals. The succession of these stresses constitutes 
the rhythm, or flow, of the composition ; when they succeed each 
other at (more or less) regular intervals, they constitute metre, and 
the composition is called verse. Ordinary Shakespearean dialogue 
is written in a metre which consists of five stressed alternating with 
five unstressed syllables, in rising rhythm (i.e., opening on an un- 
stressed syllable), and without rhyme. Hence the name, Blank 
Verse. 

More than half of As You Like It, however, is written in prose. 
Shakespeare's choice of these two modes of expression is noteworthy. 
It is mainly determined by two considerations : (1) the characters 
speaking ; (2) the dominant sentiment or interest of the situation. 
Since prose is nearer to the language of ordinary life, it is used 

(a) by clowns, servants, and women in familiar conversation; 

(b) whenever the interest is mainly comic, intellectual, or common- 
place. Verse is a more ceremonious and conventional mode of 
speech, and so is used (a) by noble persons; (6) wherever the 
interest is mainly emotional, passionate, or imaginative. In the 
present play, observe that the two dukes and the lords generally 
talk in verse, the servants and rustics in prose. Rosalind and 
Celia use prose when alone, except in i. 3. 92 to end, where see note. 
Silvius and Phebe, the idyllic characters, always use verse ; Touch- 
stone, Audrey, and William always prose. Corin uses verse to 
Silvius and prose to Touchstone. Rosalind's witty flights are all in 
prose ; Jaques moralizes in blank verse. 

2. Variations 

The normal blank verse, then, has ten syllables, five stresses, 
rising rhythm, no rhyme : e.g., 

A green' and gild'ed snake' had wreathed' itself. 
177 



178 APPENDIX C 

All variations will fall under the head of (1) more or fewer syllables ; 
(2) more or fewer stresses ; (3) falling or level rhythm ; (4) rhyme. 

1. Syllables. (a) Extra. — An additional (unstressed) syl- 
lable may be inserted anywhere in a line. It is commonest immedi- 
ately before a pause, and so is most frequently found at the end of 
the line. Such endings are called feminine endings, and, properly 
used, impart a peculiar softness and beauty — cf . v. 4. 8-34 with 
the first lord's speech ii. 1. 25-43. Two extra syllables are rarely 
found at the end; perhaps iii. 5. 42: 

I see no more in you than in the ord | inary. 

But (when there is no slurring) such instances should be classed as 
6-stress lines. Within the line, the extra syllable usually comes at 
the caesura (see below) : e.g., 

And we will mend thy wa | ges. I like' | this place (ii. 4. 94). 

or with a change of speakers : e.g., 

And faints for sue | cour. 

Fair sir', | I pity her (ii. 4. 75). 

Extra syllables are also common in proper names ; thus, perhaps, 

If there be truth in sight, you are my Ros | alind (v. 4. 125). 

Indeed, Shakespeare not infrequently treats proper names as alto- 
gether extra-metrical. 

(b) Omitted. — An unstressed syllable is sometimes, though 
rarely, omitted. This generally takes place after an emphatic mono- 
syllable, usually an imperative : e.g., 

Peace', | I say'. | Good e' | ven to' | you, friend' (ii. 4. 70). 
Bring' | us to' | this sight', | and you' | shall say' | (iii. 4. 61). 
Some scar' | of it' ; | — lean' | upon' | a rush (iii. 5. 22). 

In all these cases there is a marked pause; hence this omission 
is commonest in the first foot — compare the monosyllabic first feet 
in Chaucer — and after that in the third. In our last instance, 
modern editors read " lean but upon a rush." 

2. Stresses, (a) Extra. — Lines with 6 stresses (Alexandrines) 
are occasionally found: e.g.. 

Besides', I like' you not'. If you' will know' my house' (iii. 5. 74). 

This is the usual type, with a pause after the third foot. 

So also ii. 1. 49 and 52 (note that half of each line is Jaques' 
reflection, half Amiens' description), iii. 5. 25, iii. 5. 118, etc. 



APPENDIX C 179 

(6) Omitted. — Lines with 4 stresses, not being exclamatory or 
broken lines, are very rare. But cf . : 

Like a | ripe sis | ter: — ' | the woman low (iv. 3. 88). 

This may be a true 4-stress line, with extra syllable at the mid- 
line pause, as 1 (a) above; or the omission may be compensated 
by the strong pause. But genuine 4- and 6-stress lines can hardly be 
regarded as mere variations of the ordinary pentameter. They are 
new metres, interspersed somewhat arbitrarily at impressive turns 
in the dialogue. 

(c) Broken Lines. — Shakespeare makes abundant use of short 
or broken verses. They occur usually at the beginning or end 
of a speech, when a speaker leaves off in the middle of a verse or 
interrupts another without regard to the metre. They sometimes 
occur in the middle of a speech, when the speaker breaks off and 
resumes anew. Exclamations, interjections, and asides belong 
to this class of broken lines, and present no difficulty. In ii. 4. 
36, 39, 42, Silvius breaks off each time at " Thou hast not loved " ; 
in v. 2. 91-94, 96-99, 105-108, Silvius's broken line " And so am I for 
Phebe " is taken up by the others in a sort of round. 

Many apparent 4-stress lines are to be explained as two broken 
lines: e.g., 

Ros. I have more cause. 

Cel. ' Thou hast not, cousin (i. 3. 95). ' 

Cel. Are you his brother ? 

Ros. Was't you he rescued ? (iv. 3. 134). 

Sometimes a part line seems to do double duty : e.g., 

And let him feed. 
Orl. I thank you most for him. 
Adam. So had you need (ii. 7. 168-169). 

Here Orl. caps the Duke's line, and is in turn capped by Adam. 1 
So ii. 3. 15-16. 

(d) Degree. — In the preceding sections, I have spoken merely of 
stressed and unstressed syllables, as if this classification were ex- 
haustive. But stress is obviously a matter of degree : every syllable 
has some stress, and between the faintest and the strongest there 
are many shades. Hence, without actual omission of stress, a foot 

1 This is Abbott's "Amphibious Section." Konig would treat Adam's 
words as an ordinary broken line at the opening of his speech ; but the in- 
stances of lines which thus cap each other are too numerous to be accidental. 



180 APPENDIX C 

may be weakened by the substitution of a weak or intermediate for 
the normal strong stress. This variation is exceedingly common, — 
not more than one line in fifteen having the normal five full stresses, 
— but is exercised under the following laws : 

(1) The weak stress ( x ) is commonest in the fifth foot: e.g., 

And high top bald with dry antiq | uity x (iv. 3. 106). 

(2) There are never more than two weak stresses in a line. 

(3) Two weak stresses rarely come together. 

(4) The loss of weight is generally made up for (except in the fifth 
foot) in one of two ways : either the other syllable in the foot has 
also a slight stress : 

I fly | thee\ for x | I would not injure thee (iii. 5. 9) ; 

or, one of the neighboring feet has two stresses : 

Will you x | go', sis' | ter? Shepherd, ply her hard (iii. 5. 77). 

3. Rhythm, (a) The order of stressed and unstressed syllables 
may be inverted in any foot, thus changing the rhythm (for that 
foot) from rising to falling : e.g., 

Sweet' are | the uses of adversity (ii. 1. 12). 

Than that j mix'd' in | his cheek (iii. 5. 122). 

Such Ethiope words, | black'er | in their effect (iv. 3. 35). 

Afflict me with thy mocks, | pi'ty | me not (iii. 5. 33). 

Stress-inversion like stress-weakening is practiced within certain 
limits. 

(1) It is commonest after a pause — i.e. in the first and after that 
in the third and fourth feet. It is not often found in the second. 

(2) It is very rare in the last place — there is no clear case of such 
inversion in As You Like It — because a change of rhythm in that 
place produces a halting effect. Hence the name scazon (limping) 
is given to this metre in Greek. 

(3) There are never more than two inversions in a line, — a 
majority of inversions would alter the character of the rhythm, not 
merely of the foot, but of the line. 

(4) Two inversions rarely come together. 

(•&) Under the conditions recorded above (2 (d)), the two syllables 
of a foot may have approximately equal stress, thus giving a level or 
" spondaic " rhythm. This is occasionally found even in the fifth 
foot: e.g., 

More than your enemies. Cel. Will you | go', coz'? (i. 2. 267). 
'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he 1 talks' well' (iii. 5. 110). 



APPENDIX C 181 

4. Rhyme. Shakespeare is very sparing of rhyme in As You 
Like It. He employs it only in two closely related ways : (1) to 
close a scene or speech; (2) to clinch an argument. Thus '1) 
scenes i. 2, i. 3, ii. 3, ii. 4, ii. 7, iii. 4, iii. 5, v. 4 end with rhymed 
couplets; as also do speeches in ii. 3. 67-68, iii. 5. 79-80, v. 4. 
184-185. In the last of these cases, as also in v. 4. 201-204, and 
ii. 3. 69-76, we find sequences of two and four couplets. The first 
two instances are appropriate to the closing scene; the last is a 
series of sententious reflections put into the mouth of old Adam, and 
is connected with the second use of the rhymed couplet, (2) to 
clinch a point. This naturally coincides very often with the end of 
a speech, but is also found in other places : e.g., Rosalind's 

Cry the man mercy ; love him ; take his offer : 

Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer (iii. 5. 61-62), 

the proverbial turn of which may be compared with the rhyme in 
1. 2. 299-300. 

3. Apparent Variations 

Apparent variations, due to difference of pronunciation then and 
now, are (1) Accentual, (2) Syllabic. 

1. Accentual Variations. There has been little change in the 
accentuation of simple words ; but E.E. shows greater laxity in the 
case of compounds. 

(a) Germanic Compounds. — If the word is felt as compound, it 
is naturally accented on the important part. Thus verb-compounds 
are regularly accented on the verb : e.g. outface' (i. 3. 124) ; whereas 
compounds of two prepositions, and pronominal compounds, in 
which the parts are of nearly equal importance, show no fixed rule : 
e.g., unto' (iv. 3. 146), but also un'to; therein' (ii. 7. 71) and there'in 
(ii. 7. 81) ; there'by (ii. 7. 28) and whereby'; therefore and therefore', 
etc.; possibly where'in (ii. 7. 83). 

Older compounds, on the other hand, which have ceased to be 
felt as compounds, follow the rule of simple words. But the verb 
part generally keeps the accent even when compounded with an 
inseparable prefix. Un- is sometimes accented before the p. part. ; 
rarely before any other part of the verb. 

(6) French and Latin Compounds. — The struggle in M.E. 
between the French and English systems of accentuation ended in 
the victory of the latter. But the influence of Latin quantity has 
preserved or restored the original accent in the case of many com- 
pounds, and by analogy in simple words as well. Thus in Shake- 



I 

182 APPENDIX C 

speare we sometimes find the English accent : e.g., an'tique (always) 
(ii. 3. 57), quint' essence (iii. 2. 147) where we have returned to the 
Latin. On the other hand we find exile' (ii. 1. 1) and exiled' (v. 4. 
171), but also ex'ile; confines' (ii. 1. 24), but also con' fines; contents' 
(iv. 3. 8), but also con'tents; aspect' (iv. 3. 53) ; compact' (v. 4. 5), 
but also com' pact; allies' (v. 4. 195) (always). Miscon' strues (i. 
2. 277) was pronounced, as it was often spelt, miscon'sters. 
Probably also ex'ceeded in the difficult line i. 2. 256 : 

But jus | tly, as | you have ex' | ceeded | all pro | mise. 

2. Syllabic Variations. 1 (a) A vowel may be lost before a 
consonant in prefixes and monosyllables : e.g., 'gainst (i. 2. 290) ; 
'mongst (iv. 3. 124) ; 'tis, 'twas (passim), was't (iv. 3. 134) ; were't 
(i. 3. 116) ; marlct (iii. 4. 59) ; write' t (iv. 3. 22). This will present 
no difficulty, and is often indicated in printing. 

(b) Short e is almost always mute in -es of genitives and plurals. 
In the 3d pers. sing, of verbs, -es 2 (mute) -eth (sonant) is the rule. 
In -ed and -est there is much variety, but Shakespeare favored the 
short form as he grew older: e.g., marked (ii. 1. 41); livid (ii. 3. 
72) ; promised (v. 4. 2) ; be'st (i. 3. 45) ; diest (i. 3. 47) ; frail'st (iii. 
5. 12), etc. Here, too, the printer is a guide. 

■ (c) An unaccented vowel is sometimes lost before a consonant in 
the middle of a word of more than two syllables : e.g., residue (ii. 7. 
196) ; covetousness (iii. 5. 91) ; medicine (ii. 7. 61) ; but in such a 
case it is not always easy to say whether the vowel is lost or an extra 
syllable inserted. 

(d) Two adjacent vowels may be run into one, in the same or in 
adjacent words. 

(1) In the same word — envious (i. 2. 253), Amiens (ii. 1. 29), 
effigies (ii. 7. 193), executioner (iii. 5. 3), Silvius (iii. 5. 86), but also 
Silvi-us (iii. 5. 84) ; piteous (ii. 1. 40), being (ii. 7. 143, etc.), but 
also be-ing; lineaments (iii. 5. 56), virtuous (i. 3. 83), sinewy (ii. 2. 
14), power (iii. 5. 29), voyage (ii. 7. 40 and v. 4. 197), etc. 

(2) In adjacent words — thou hadst (i. 2. 236), you have (i. 2. 254, 
etc.), I have (v. 4. 18), know it (ii. 7. 38), to it (iii. 1. 4) — pro- 

1 In this section I have followed the order adopted by Prof. Herford in his 
Richard II, in preference to the artificial nomenclature of Konig. And I 
would take this opportunity of acknowledging my great obligations to Prof. 
Herford ; his Richard II has supplied me with countless suggestions, both as 
to form and matter. 

2 The mark (.) under a vowel shows that it is mute. 



APPENDIX C 183 

nounced thou'dst, knowH, etc. (prodelision) ; the extremest (ii. 1. 42), 
the embossed (ii. 7. 67), the extremity (iv. 3. 23), she urged (i. 2. 270) 
pronounced iti extremest, sh' urged, etc. (elision) ; do all (i. 3. 54) 

(slurred) ; follow her (iii. 5. 49) — pronounced foll'w'er. 

It will be seen that slurring is commonest, in both cases, when 
the first vowel is i or u, which readily assume a consonantal power 
= y or w. 

(3) On the other hand, the terminations -ion, -ience, etc., now 
universally contracted, are frequently open in Shakespeare, e.g., 
conditi-on (i. 2. 276), intermissi-on (ii. 7. 32), observati-on (ii. 7. 41), 
reputati-on (ii. 7. 152), acti-on (iv. 3. 9), etc.; pati-ence (i. 3. 80). 
In all these cases, except the third, the open i-on, i-ence is at the 
end of a line. 

(e) One of the most characteristic differences between Elizabethan 
and modern pronunciation is the fluid state of the semi-vowels, or 
" vowel-likes," I, m, n, r, and perhaps -ng. These letters may 
exercise the function either of vowels or consonants : e.g., in little 
the first I is consonantal, the second vocalic. The sign ( ) under the 
letter is used to indicate the sonant (vocalic) value. 

(1) A sonant liquid (l 6 , m, n, o r) may form a new syllable : e.g., 
wrestler (ii. 2. 13). 

(2) A liquid may cause the loss of a syllable at the end of a word, 
either by becoming consonantal before a following vowel, or by 
being slurred before a following consonant: e.g., given him 
( = givnim) (i. 2. 250), sudden and quick ( = suddnand quick) (ii. 7. 
151), complexion and (= complecshnand) (iii. 5. 116), brother his 
( = brothris) (iv. 3. 121), hither I ( = hithri) (ii. 7. 195) — but see 
below (J) ; perhaps, too, weeping into (3 syllables) (ii. 1. 46). 

Instances of slurred liquids are more numerous : e.g., heaven (i. 3. 
106 and iii. 5. 58), bitter with him (3 syllables) (iii. 5. 138), father 
the (2 syllables) (ii. 7. 196), newfall'n dignity (5 syllables) (v. 4. 
182), victualVd so (2 syllables) (v. 4. 198). This rule probably 
applies to ii. 4. 75 : 

And faints for succour. Fair sir, I pity her — 

where there is a change of speakers (but see 1 (a) above) . So, too, 
I would scan i. 3. 43 : 

And get | you from | our court. | 

Me', un x | cle? 

You', I cousin — 



184 APPENDIX C 

where me and you are clearly emphatic, and cousin is an extra mono- 
syllable. Cf . : 

We do | debase | ourselves, | cousin, do | we not ? 

Rich. II, iii. 3. 127. 

(3) Syncope of an unaccented vowel in the middle of a word, 
rare before a consonant, is very common before a liquid: e.g., 
humorous (i. %. 278), natural (i. 2. 288), unnatural (iv. 3. 123), 
sovereign (i. 3. 68), reference (i. 3. 129), difference (ii. 1. 6), flattery 
(ii. 1. 10), butchery (ii. 3. 27), boisterous (iv. 3. 31), murmuring (iv. 
3. 80), desperate (v. 4. 32), Frederick (v. 4. 160), ever?/ (v. 4. 178) ; 
animals (ii. 1. 62), but trisyllabic in ii. 1. 36; countenance (iv. 3. 
36). It will be seen that contraction before r is by far the most 
common. Even when it comes before the vowel, a liquid seems to 
make contraction more easy : e.g., forest (i. 3. 109), innocent (ii. 
1. 39). 

(4) A long vowel or diphthong is, sometimes resolved into two 
syllables before the liquid r : e.g., hour (2 syllables) (v. 4. 12) ; so 
prayers (iv. 3. 55) remains uncontracted. 

(if) In other, whether, etc., over, ever, even, seven, etc., contrac- 
tion results after suppression of the consonant : i.e., wheer (not 
whether), e'en, seen (not ev'n, sev'n). E.g., other (1 syllable) (i. 2. 
285), seventeen (2 syllables) (ii. 3. 71). Cf. Scotch he for love. Add 
ta'en for taken (i. 2. 290). 

4. Pauses 

In § 2 I have enumerated the variations possible within the 
limits of the single line. But, when we come to consider a sequence 
of lines, or verse-paragraph, a new source of variation is disclosed 
in the disposition of the pauses. Naturally there is a pause at 
the end of each line, with a slighter pause (caesura) within the line. 
Such is the regular structure of the primitive English pentameter 
(e.g., in Gorboduc), the caesura falling commonly after the second 
foot. This monotony Shakespeare breaks up (1) by varying the 
position of the caesura ; (2) by dispensing now and then with the 
end-line pause, thus producing what are called enjambed or run- 
on lines. There is enjambement in some degree wherever the end 
of a line goes more closely in reading with what follows than with 
what goes before. But the closeness of an enjambement depends 
upon the grammatical connection, the importance, and the order 
of the parts. The enjambements in As You Like It, though 
numerous, are not bold. There are more of those " light " and 



APPENDIX C 



185 



" weak " endings — lines closing on a conjunction, a preposition, a 
relative, or a copula — which may be found on every page of The 
Winter s Tale or The Tempest. 

5. Metre as a Test of Date 

Three of the variations mentioned above are -occasionally of use 
in helping to determine the chronology of Shakespeare's writings : 
(1) rhyme, which he affected less and less ; (2) double-endings ; and 
(3) enjambement, which he affected more and more. The value of 
each as a chronological test varies ; it is lowest in the case of rhyme, 
which we have seen that Shakespeare uses consciously and for a 
special purpose; highest in the case of enjambement, where it 
denotes a gradual growth of the rhythmical sense. More valuable 
than any, perhaps, is (4) the speech-ending test, based on the coin- 
cidence of speech-endings with verse-endings, a coincidence which 
Shakespeare came gradually to avoid. 

The versification of As You Like It has the general characteristics 
of the middle period — rhymes are scarce, double-endings common, 
etc., but the various tests yield no definite result. I give the per- 
centages for As You Like It, Love's Labour s Lost (a typical early 
play), and The Tempest (a typical late play) : 



Rhyme . . 
Double-endings 
Enjambements 
Speech-endings 



L. L. L. 



62.2 
7.7 
18.4 
10 



A. Y. L. I. 



6.3 
25.5 
17.1 
21.6 



Temp. 



.1 

35.4 
41.5 
84.5 



By the first test, As You Like It stands 14th in the list of plays ; 
by the second, 24th; by the third, 12th; by the fourth, 21st. We 
can only say that, like Twelfth Night, it falls somewhere between 
Romeo and Juliet and Troilus and Cressida. 1 

1 The figures in this section are taken from Konig, Der Vers in Shakesperes 
Dramen, pp. 130-138. Under the third test Konig reckons only the more 
marked enjambements, i.e., those in which enjambement is heightened by close 
syntactical connection or otherwise. 



GLOSSARY 



a, an, the indefinite article. 
O.E. dn, one, differentiated 
into oon, numeral, and dn, 
article. Note these uses : 

(1) a — a certain (i. 1. 129) ; 

(2) a = one, the same (i. 3. 
76; v. 3. 14). 

address' d (v. 4. 162), prepared. 
F. adresser; late Lat. addirec- 
tiare, to make straight, ^direc- 
tum, straight. Hence (1) to 
put in order; (2) to direct 
one's speech to ; (3) to direct 
oneself to. 

adventure (ii. 4. 45), chance. 
O.F. aventure, Lat. adventura 
(res), a thing about to happen, 
fut. part. fern, of advenire, to 
arrive. The spelling went 
back to the Latin. For the 
meaning, cf. peradventure = 
perhaps. 

allottery (i. 1. 77), share. Prob- 
ably an English formation on 
allot; -ery being added directly 
to the verb. Only here. 

an (i. 2. 220), if. Probably the 
same as and coordinate. 
Skeat refers it to Norse enda, 
but the use probably arose 
independently in English. 
Spelled and before 1600. 

any (i. 2. 149) ; still used as a 
noun in E.E. O.E. aenig is 
noun or adj. 

argument : O.F. argument, Lat. 
argumentum, <.arguere, to 
prove. Hence (1) proof, rea- 
son (i. 2. 291). (2) Debate, 
arguing (i. 2. 50). (3) Subject 
of debate — Henry V, ii. 1. 
21, " And sheathed their 
swords for lack of argument." 
(4) Object of debate or action 
in general (iii. 1. 3). In mod- 
ern English the word has been 
confined to the original Latin 



sense ; but we still speak of the 
" argument," i.e. subject of a 
play, etc. 

assay'd (i. 3. 131), ventured. 
Properly essay. O.F. essai, 
Lat. exagium, weighing, < 
exigere, to try. Hence, to put 
to the test, to attempt. The 
spelling assay is now confined 
to testing metals. 

atone (v. 4. 116), come into unity. 
From at-one (pronounced own). 
Generally transitive — short 
for " set at one." The verb is 
a 16th century formation, and 
comes from the use of "at 
one " in adverbial phrases ; cf . 
the use of further, and other 
adverbs as verbs (Wright). 
The true sound of " one " has 
also been preserved in alone. 

attorney (iv. 1. 94), proxy. O.F. 
atourne, p. part, of atourner, to 
turn to, appoint. Here in the 
correct legal sense. 

bandy (v. 1. 61), fight; lit. to 
strike a ball at tennis. Origin 
obscure. F. bander, "to ban- 
die at tennis " (Cotgrave) ; per- 
haps from bande, a side. 

bastinado (v. 1. 60), cudgelling. 
Spanish bastonada, from bas- 
ton, a cudgel. Now generally 
of the Eastern punishment of 
beating the soles of the feet. 

batlet, or batler (ii. 4. 49), a 
" beetle " for beating clothes. 
The first form is the diminutive 
of bat; the second comes from 
battle (to beat), + er of the 
instrument. 

beholding (iv. 1. 60), obliged. 
A common E.E. corruption of 
p. part, beholden, from O.E. 
behealdan, to hold, behold. 
From the sense of " holding '■* 



187 



188 



GLOSSARY 



comes that of " obligation," 
which is confined to the parti- 
ciple. The curious substitu- 
tion of the present part, for the 
past " may have been due to a 
notion that it meant ' looking 
to,' e.g. with respect or de- 
pendence." 

bid (v. 2. 47), invite. O.E. 
biddan. Not the same word as 
" bid," to order, which is from 
O.E. beddan. 

bob (ii. 7. 55), a jest. Lit. a rap. 
Probably an onomatopoetic 
word, from the sound of a 
smart tap. Cf. the verb bob 
= strike with the fist. 

bonny (ii. 3. 8), big. Connected 
with O.F. bon, good ; but the 
formation is unexplained. 
Generally means beautiful, but 
see note. 

bravery (ii. 7. 80), finery. From 
brave (F. brave) in the sense of 
fine ; cf . Sc. braw and braws. 

brawls (ii. 1. 32), runs noisily. 
Not much used before 1400. 
The origin is unknown ; it is 
not connected with F. branler, 
which may, however, be the 
source of the noun brawl, i.e. a 
dance : " The grave Lord 
Keeper led the brawls " (Gray). 

burden (iii. 2. 261), bass, under- 
song, accompaniment. O.E. 
burden, < beran, to bear. 
This peculiar sense comes from 
confusion with M.E. burdoun, 
F. bourdon, bass [Lat. burdonem, 
drone] — from the notion that 
the bass is " heavier " than the 
air. Hence the sense of theme. 

butchery (ii. 3. 27), shambles. 
M.E. bocherie, O.F. boucherie; 
-y denotes place. The word 
is still used of the slaughter- 
houses in barracks or aboard 
ship. 

capable (iii. 5. 23), perceptible — 
through O.F. from Lat. capabi- 
lem, <capere, to catch. 

carlot (iii. 5. 108), peasant. A 
diminutive — probably coined 
by Shakespeare — of carl < 



O.E. carl, man. From the soft 
form ceorl comes churl, with a 
depreciation of meaning like 
that observed in villain, q.v. 

cater (ii. 3. 44), provide. Short 
for acater (cf. 'gainst, 'mongst, 
etc.). O.F. achater (F. acheter), 
to buy : late Lat. ac-captare, 
to acquire, <ad + captare, to 
catch. 

chanticleer (ii. 7. 30), the cock. 
Originally a proper name. 
O.F. Chantecler (F. Chante- 
clair), the name of the cock in 
the famous beast-epic of Rey- 
nard the Fox, meaning the 
clear-singer : < chanter, to sing ; 
+ cler (F. clair), clear. 

character (iii. 2. 6), write. 
Through Lat. from Gr. x*P aKT1 iPt 
a mark. Shakespeare uses the 
verb always, and the noun gen- 
erally, in the literal sense of 
writing ; even when meta- 
phorically used, " character " 
is never applied (as now) to 
inward qualities, but always to 
outward expression. 

cicatrice (iii. 5. 23), mark. 
Properly, the scar of a wound ; 
Lat. cicatric-em. 

civil (iii. 2. 136), civilized; 
civility (ii. 7. 93), courtesy. 
These words have a finer mean- 
ing in E.E. than now, when 
they indicate merely external 
politeness — the absence of 
rudeness. From O.F. civil, 
civilite, Lat. civilis, civilitatem, 
of the qualities proper to a 
citizen, civis. 

conceit (ii. 6. 8), thought. An 
English formation from con- 
ceive, on the analogy of deceit 
from deceive, etc. Means (1) 
conception, (2) private opinion, 
and so (3) an overweening 
opinion of oneself. The last 
meaning, the common one now, 
never attaches to the word in 
Shakespeare. 

conned (iii. 2. 289), learned by 
heart. Same word as can. 
O.E. kunnan, to know or to be 
able, had two forms in the 



GLOSSARY 



189 



present, ic can and ic con. 
These forms differentiated (1) 
in meaning — can being limited 
to power, con to knowledge; 
(2) in inflexion — in M.E. con 
becomes a regular verb, the 
past could being reserved to 
can. Means (1) to know, (2) 
to get to know, (3) to learn 
by heart. 

cony (hi. 2. 357), rabbit. O.F. 
conil, pi. coniz, whence _ Eng. 
conys, cony: <Lat. cuniculus, 
a rabbit. The name " rab- 
bit" was originaUy applied to 
the young only. 

cote (ii. 4. 83), cottage. O.E. 
cote (fern.), a parallel form to 
cot (neut.). 

countenance (i. 1. 19), bearing. 
Late Lat. continentia, mien, 
carriage; hence (1) deport- 
ment, (2) the face itself. 
From a similar transference 
and limitation of meaning, 
compare favour, complexion, 
etc. [On Walker's view, that 
the word is here used in the 
sense of " allowance," it would 
come from, or represent, the 
Lat. contenement-um. But see 
note.] 

courtesy (i. 1. 49), customary 
usage. O.F. cortesie. It. 
cortese, courteous. The ex- 
pression " courtesy of na- 
tions " (jus gentium) recalls 
the legal sense of the word, 
usage not fixed by statute, 
e.g. courtesy of Scotland, etc. 

coz (i. 2. 1), short for " cousin." 
F. cousin; Late Lat. cosinus, 
cossofrenus, <Lat. consobrinus, 
cousin by the mother's side 
(con + soror) . But the word 
was often used to translate 
consanguineus, and so was 
extended to other blood-rela- 
tions, especially uncle, nephew, 
and niece, (cf. i. 3. 43), and 
finally used merely as a term 
of courtesy (cf. ii. 7. 173). 

curtle-axe (i. 3. 119), cutlass. 
The form is a popular corrup- 
tion of cutlass, which in the 



16th century was spelled 
coutelase, whence the forms 
courtleace and cuttle-ax; both 
parts of the word getting cor- 
rupted, as from curtal, short,- 
and axe. Really it comes from 
F. coutelas, from couteau, Lat. 
cultell-um, knife. 

dole (i. 2. 138), lamentation. 
O.F. duel (Fr. deuil), < L. 
dolere to grieve. Cf. Scotch 
dule. 

embossed (ii. 7. 67), protuber- 
ant. In E.E. there are two 
distinct words of this spelling, 
with some inevitable confusion 
of meaning : (1) from en + 
boss = bulged, as here ; (2) 
from en + O.F. bos, bois, a 
wood — a term of hunting, 
" driven to the wood," brought 
to bay, and so, by influence of 
sense (1), foaming at the 
mouth. Cf. Milton, Samson 
Agonistes, 1700, " In th' Ara- 
bian woods embost" ; and 
Taming of the Shrew, Ind. i. 17, 
" The poor cur is emboss'd." 

emulator (i. 1. 149) , envious rival. 
Lat. aemulari, from aemulus, 
a rival. Shakespeare uses this 
word and its cognates in a bad 
sense. In E.E. the mental 
emotion is prominent, in Md. 
E. the active effort (Bradley). 

engage (v. 4. 172), pledge. F. 
engager, < en + gage, to offer 
as a guarantee. 

entreat (i. 2. 159, 218; i. 3. 71), 
to induce, implore. O.F. en- 
traiter, < Lat. tractare, to 
handle. Hence (1) to treat, 
(2) to treat with, and so (3) 
to ask, implore — the modern 
sense (i. 3. 71), and (4) to ask 
with success, to induce (i. 2. 
171), 

envious, envy. O.F. envie, Lat. 
invidia-m. The meaning fluc- 
tuates between the general 
sense of " spiteful," " mali- 
cious " (i. 2. 253), and the 
more special sense of " pain- 



190 



GLOSSARY 



fully jealous " in which we now 
use it (i. 1. 149). 

erst (iii. 5. 95), formerly. Super- 
lative of ere. 

expediently (iii. 1. 18), promptly. 
Lat. expedire (ex + pedem), 
to disentangle the feet, re- 
move obstacles. " Thence, a 
course which tends to remove or 
avoid obstacles is ' expedient ' : 
a sense also common in E.E., 
now exclusive " (Herford). 

extent (iii. 1. 17). M.E. extente, 
O.F. extente, p. part. fern, of ex- 
tendre, used as substantive. 
See note. 

extermined (iii. 5. 89), ended. 
F. exterminer, Lat. exterminare, 
Shakespeare does not use exter- 
minate, which is an English for- 
mation from the Lat. p. part. 

fancy, fantasy. M.E. and O.F. 

fantasie, through Low Lat. 
from Gr. <f>avTaa-La, imagina- 
tion. Shakespeare uses both 
words indifferently for (1) the 
faculty of imagination and its 
objects (iv. 3. 102) ; (2) love 
(ii. 4. 31 ; v. 2. 100). If there 
is a distinction, in fantasy the 
element of thought is promi- 
nent, in fancy that of taste. 
The sense of "liking" is con- 
fined to fancy. 

favour (v. 4. 27), appearance. 
Norm. F. favor, Lat. favor-em, 
kindliness. Transferred, like 
countenance (q.v.), from feel- 
ing to expression. Hence ill- 
favouredly (i. 2. 42) = ugly. 
The verb is still used collo- 
quially in the sense of " re- 
semble " ; and this may mark 
the transition (incline to ; look 
like; look). 

feature (iii. 3. 3), make, ap- 
pearance. O.F. faiture, Lat. 
factura, < facere, to make. 
Applied in E.E. to shape in 
general, now confined to the 
face (cf. countenance and 
favour). [There seems to be 
another word, feature, in E.E., 
from Lat. fetura, offspring, 



which has been thought to be 
the meaning here. But it is 
always used with a conscious- 
ness of the physiological meta- 
phor, e.g. in Latimer's " some 
ingendred one some other such 
features." There is no evi- 
dence for the meaning " com- 
position," " literary produc- 
tion."] 

foil (i. 1. 136), defeat. O.F. 
fouler, to trample on, Low Lat. 
fullare, to full cloth by beating. 
Cf . defile, from defouler. Spen- 
ser uses fyle for " to dirty/' 
So Shakespeare, Macbeth, iii. 
1. 65, " For Banquo's issue 
have I filed my mind." 

fond (ii. 3. 7), foolish. M.E. 
fanned, p. part, of fonnen, from 
fon, a fool. From meaning 
"to be infatuated " about 
anything, it has come to mean 
simply " to care for." 

gamester (i. 1. 169), lively fel- 
low. From game -f- -ster, a 
suffix conventionally confined 
in O.E. to female agents. In 
E.E. the word has a contemp- 
tuous sense, but is not defi- 
nitely restricted to mean 
" gambler." 

gentle (i. 1. 48), (1) of good 
birth, (2) of good nature. 
M.E. gentil, Lat. gentilis, be- 
longing to one of the gentes, 
or original clans. 

gracious (i. 2. 200), popular. 
It. gratioso, Lat. gratiosus, 
Kgratiam, favor. Now gen- 
erally transitive = showing 
favor. 

graff (iii. 2. 123), graft. O.F. 
graffe, a pencil, Lat. graph- 

iolum, Gr. ypa^iov, <ypa<J>eij/, 

to write. The form graft, 
which Shakespeare also uses, is 
corrupt, due to being confused 
with the p. part, graffed. 

hinds (i. 1. 20), farm-servants. 
M.E. hine, O.E. hina, a gen. 
pi. ; so that hina stands for 
hina man, one of the domes- 



GLOSSARY 



191 



tics. The d is an excrescence, 
as in sound, etc. The meaning 
" farm-servant " is still com- 
mon in Scotch. 

holla (iii. 2. 257), whoa! stop! 
F. hold,, ho, there ! = ho + 
Id, there. Not the same as 
Eng. halloo, which calls atten- 
tion. Confusion has produced 
the intermediate hollo and 
halloa. 

honest (i. 2. 41), chaste. O.F. 
honeste, Lat. honestus, honor- 
able, < honos, honor. In 
Shakespeare, note the mean- 
ings (1) upright, hence honesty 
= fair-dealing in ii. 4. 91 ; 
(2) chaste, modest — very 
common. 

hooping (iii. 2. 203), shouting. 
M.E. houpen, to shout ; a va- 
riant of whoop. 

humorous (i. 2. 278, etc.), see 
notes. O.F. humor, Lat. 
humorem, moisture. Applied 
especially to the fluids of the 
body. 

hurtling (iv. 3. 132), dashing 
together. M.E. hurtlen, fre- 
quentative of hurten, in the 
sense of " to dash." 

'ild (iii. 3. 76), reward. Short 
for yield, in its original sense of 
"pay," M.E. yelden, O.E. 
geldan, to pay. Cf. Ger. gel- 
ten, to be worth. 

incontinent (v. 2, 42), instantly. 
F. incontinent, lit. without 
holding oneself in ; Lat. in + 
continere, to restrain. 

kind (iii. 2, 109 ; iv. 3. 59), nature. 
M.E. kind, O.E. cynd, nature. 
A noun formed from the adj. 
kind; cf. kindly (ii. 3. 53). 
(O.E. ge-cynde, native), which 
in E.E. still retains something 
of its original sense of " natu- 
ral." 

kindled (iii. 2. 358), brought 
forth. M.E. kindlen, to pro- 
duce, from kindel, diminutive 
of kind; generally of a litter, 
e.g. of rabbits, as here. 



learn (i. 2. 5), teach. M.E. 
lernen, O.E. leornian, to learn ; 
a neuter form sometimes con- 
fused with the causative leren, 
laeran, to teach. (Cf. Ger. 
lernen and lehren). The con- 
fusion is reciprocal, leren being 
sometimes used reflexively = 
to learn. 

leer (iv. 1. 67), look. M.E. lere, 
O.E. hleor, cheek, look. At 
first used in a good sense, but 
twice in Skelton (time of 
Henry VIII) of ugly looks. 
In Shakespeare (1) look in 
general, (2) a winning look. 
Now a sly, sinister look. 

lief (i. 1. 152), gladly. M.E. lief 
(adj.), O.E. leof, dear (adj. 
and subst.) ; cf. Ger. lieb. In 
Shakespeare only in "I had 
as lief." [" My liefest liege," 
2 Henry VI, iii. 1. 164, need 
not be Shakespeare's.] 

liege (i. 2. 167; i. 3. 87), sov- 
ereign. M.E. and O.F. lige, 
liege, < Old High German 
ledic, " free " ; hence properly 
of the feudal suzerain or liege- 
lord, who alone was free ; but 
also applied to his vassals 
("the Queen's lieges"), by 
supposed derivation from Lat. 
ligare, to bind. 

lieu (ii. 3. 65), return. Fr. lieu, 
Lat. locum, place. 

limn'd (ii. 7. 194), drawn. Prop- 
erly " illuminated." M.E. lim- 
nen, for luminen, short for 
enluminen, O.F. enluminer, 
Lat. illuminare. 

manage (i. 1. 13), training of a 
horse. O.F. manege, lit. han- 
dling (esp. of horses) ; Lat. 
manum, hand. 

mettle (ii. 7. 82), spirit. Same 
word as metal, the metaphor 
being from the temper of the 
metal of a sword. 

misprised (i. 1. 176), under- 
valued. O.F. mespriser, to 
contemn (Spenser has mesprize 
= contempt) < O.F. mes = 
Lat. minus, less, and Lat. 



192 



GLOSSARY 



pretiare, to value, from pretium 
price. 

modesty (iii. 2. 156), chastity. 
F. modeste, Lat. modestus, meas- 
urable, from modus, measure. 
For the special sense, cf . honest 
above. 

moe (iii. 2. 278) ; more (iii. 2. 
276), more. Moe is from O.E. 
ma (adv.), more from mdra 
(adj.) = greater. Ma was used 
as neut. noun followed by 
gen., i.e. more of so and so. 
Hence, Alexander Gil's dictum 
that moe is comp. of " many," 
more of " much." In Shake- 
speare's usage moe is always 
followed by a plural. 

mortal (ii. 4. 55), excessive. 
Johnson suggests a connection 
with the vulgar mort = a large 
quantity. 

mutton (iii. 2. 57), sheep. O.F. 
moton (F. mouton), a sheep. 
In M.E. after a time the 
French name came to be 
reserved for the dead meat, the 
English for the live animal — 
ef. bceuf, beef. 

necessary (iii. 3. 52), unavoid- 
able. O.F. necessaire, Lat. ne- 
cessarius. This is the proper 
Latin sense ; but Shakespeare 
also uses the word in the looser 
modern sense of " needful " — 
useful, but not indispensable. 

new-fangled (iv. 1. 152), fond of 
what is new. The d is an ex- 
crescence. M.E. newe-f angel, 
O.E. newe + fangel, < fang-, 
to seize = ready to seize what 
is new. In Md.E. the word is 
commonly used of things, and 
simply = novel. 

nice (iv. 1. 15), finical. O.F. 
nice, simple, Lat. nescius, igno- 
rant. The regular M.E. 
meaning is " foolish " ; in 
E.E. (1) of persons, " fastid- 
ious," (2) of things, " fine- 
drawn " — whence the ordi- 
nary modern meaning of pleas- 
ant. The curious change of 
meaning may be due to con- 



fusion with nesh, soft, delicate, 
dainty — a word still pre- 
served in Lancashire dialect. 

owe (iii. 2. 78), possess — i.e. 
bear (hate to no man). O.E. 
dg, dh, possess. The modern 
sense of " obligation " may be 
paralleled by the sense of 
" compulsion " which attaches 
to have in " I have to do so and 
so." 

pageant (ii. 7. 138, etc.), show. 
M.E. pagent, lit. scaffold, 
stage, < Lat. pagina (page), in 
the sense of platform. 

pantaloon (ii. 7. 158), dotard. 
An Italian loan-word, late 16th 
century. In Italian it was 
applied (1) to Venetians as a 
nickname — it was a common 
baptismal name in Venice, the 
patron saint of the city being 
St. Pantaleone (cf. " Paddy " 
for Irishman) ; (2) in Italian 
comedy the pantalone was an 
amorous old dotard who was 
the butt of the piece. 

parcels (iii. 5. 125), small parts. 
The original sense is simply 
" portions." F. par telle, Lat. 
particella, dim. of pars, a part. 

pathetical (iv. 1. 196). O.F. 
pathetique, through Lat. from 
Gr. 7ra07]Ti/c6s, passionate < 
7ra0o5, suffering. For Shake- 
speare's curious use of it, see 
note ad loc. 

peevish (iii. 5. 110), forward. 
M.E. peuisch, ill-natured. In 
M.E. and E.E. the meaning 
ranges from " childish " to 
" wayward," even " witty." 
(Derivation obscure ; prob- 
ably echoic.) 

point-device (iii. 2. 402), pre- 
cise. Short for at point-device 
(Chaucer has " with limmes 
wrought at point device " : 
Romance of the Rose, 830) ; a 
translation of O.F. a point 
devis, according to a point de- 
vised, i.e. in the best way 
imaginable. 



GLOSSARY 



193 



power (v. 4. 162), force. <O.F. 
povoir, Late Lat. potere = 
posse, to be able. The inf. is 
used as a concrete noun ; cf . 
M.E. maegen. 

practise (i. L 155), plot. F. 
practiquer, from practique, ex- 
perience, through Lat. from 
Gr. 7rpaKTtKij, practical (science) 
Opdrretv, to do. The verb 
always has a bad sense in 
Shakespeare. 

priser (ii. 3. 8), prize-fighter or 
wrestler. In either case from 
F. prise, seizing, p. part. fern, 
of prendre, Lat. prehendere, 
to seize. 

promise (i. 2. 148), assure. F. 
promesse, Lat. promissa, p. 
part, of promittere. In this 
sense only in the phrase, " I 
promise you." 

proper (i. 2. 129, etc.), hand- 
some. M.E. and F. propre, 
Lat. proprium, one's own. 
Hence " suitable," " just," and 
(externally) " comely." 

puisny (iii. 4. 46) , unskillful. O.F. 
puisne, (F. puine, younger). 
<Lat. post-natum, born after. 
Same word as puny. For the 
spelling, cf. puisne, judge. 

puke (ii. 7. 144), vomit. Per- 
haps for spuke. Cf. spew, and 
Ger. spuken, to spit. 

purchase (iii. 2. 360), acquire. 
M.E. pourchasen, to acquire, 
O.F. purchaser, to pursue. 
Now of acquiring by payment ; 
but in law all land other than 
inherited is still said to be 
acquired by purchase. 

purgation (i. 3. 55 ; v. 4. 45), ex- 
culpation. F. purgation, Lat. 
purgation-em, < purgare, to 
cleanse. A legal word, used 
properly by the Duke, and 
improperly by Touchstone ; 
see note. 

purlieus (iv. 3. 77), borders of a 
forest. O.F. puralee, part of a 
royal forest disforested by per- 
ambulationem. The form is 
due to corruption with lieu, 
place, but also appears as 



purley. Shakespeare's use of 
it is correct ; it is now used of 
precincts in general. 

quail (ii. 2. 20), flag. M.E. 
quelen, O.E. cwelan, to die 
(properly, by violence), then 
to pine. Confused by Shake- 
speare with quell, to kill (O.E. 
cwellan), in Antony and Cleo- 
patra, v. 2. 85. 

quintain (i. 2. 263), see note. 
F. quintaine, Low Lat. quin- 
tana — probably from the 
street of that name in a Roman 
camp ; the market-place stood 
in the quintana, and sports 
would naturally be held there. 

ranged (i. 3. 70), roved. F. 
ranger, < rang, a rank. The 
sense of " roving " comes from 
scouring the country with 
" ranks " of soldiers. 

rascal (iii. 3. 58), a deer out of 
season. M.E. raskaille, the 
common herd, as if from O.F. 
rascaille (F. racaille), off scour- 
ing, Lat. rasum < radere, to 
scrape. 

roynish (ii. 2. 8), scurvy. M.E. 
roignous, royne; O.F. roineux, 
roigne, the mange. 

sad (iii. 2. 156), serious. O.E. 
saed, sated. In M.E. and even 
in E.E. the sense is much wider 
than now, ranging from " se- 
rious " to " solid." 

sans (ii. 7. 166), without. A 
French word, borrowed about 
1350, and originally used in 
French phrases only — sans 
faille, sans doute, etc. Quite 
Anglicized at one time, but 
now gone out of use. 

savage (ii. 6. 7), wild — without 
any notion of " ferocity." 
Lit. " living in the woods." 
M.E. sauvage, salvage, O.F. 
salvage, Lat. silvaticurn < silva, 
a wood. 

shrewd (v. 4. 179), hard, bitter. 
Properly p. part, of shrewen, to 
curse, < schrewe, bad. The 



194 



GLOSSARY 



fundamental sense is " biting," 
as in shrew-mouse, and this is 
still felt in E.E. 

smirch (i. 3. 114), smear. A 
weak form of smerk, extended 
from M.E. smeren, O.E. 
smerien, to smear. 

smother (i. 2. 299), suffocating 
smoke. M.E. smorthen, < 
O.E. smorian, to stifle, Scotch 
smore. 

sooth (hi. 2. 410), truth. In 
E.E. also an adj., and this is 
the original sense : M.E. soth, 
O.E. s6b°, true ; the neuter 
being used as a subst. = a true 
thing. 

speed (i. 2. 222), good fortune. 
O.E. sped. 

squandering (ii. 7. 57), random, 
haphazard. A nasalized form 
of the echoic squatter (Sc), 
originally to scatter. Now 
confined to scattering money. 

stanzo (ii. 5. 18), stanza. An 
Italian loan-word, still new to 
Shakespeare's ear. Low Lat. 
stantia, an abode, < stare, to 
stand : hence, a pause in 
verse. 

suit (i. 2. 258), see note. F. 
suite, " a" chase . . . also the 
train, attendants, or followers 
of a great person " (Cotgrave). 
Lat. secta < sequi, to follow. 

swashing (i. 3. 122), swagger- 
ing. Probably echoic, from the 
sound of a noisy blow. 

synod (iii. 2. 158), council. 
Through F. and Lat. from Gr. 
o-woSos, meeting, < a-vv -J- 6So?, 
way. The word is now con- 
fined to ecclesiastical councils, 
and in Shakespeare, five times 
out of six, it isjised of councils 
of the gods. 

taxation (i. 2. 91) ; taxing (ii. 
7. 86), censure, satire. O.F. 
taxer, to assess, Lat. taxare = 
tactare, to handle < tactum, 
touch. From meaning " to 
charge," it passes to the sense 
of " charging " with crimes, 
etc., and so of satirizing. 



tender (v. 2. 77), value. A verb 
formed without change from 
the adj. tender. F. tendre, Lat. 
tenerum. 

thrasonical (v. 2. 34), boastful, 
vainglorious. An E.E. coin- 
age, from Thraso, the brag- 
gart in the Eunuchus of 
Terence. 

traverse (iii. 4. 40), crosswise. 
F. traverse (fern.), Lat. trans- 
versa, turned across, < trans 

trow (iii. 2. 189), know. . O.E. 
tredwian, to have trust in, < 
tredwa, trust. Properly, to 
suppose true. 

umber (i. 3. 114) brown ochre. 
F. ombre, short for terre d' ombre, 
earth for shading, It. terra 
d' ombra, < Lat. umbra, shade. 
[The usual derivation from 
Umbria, where it is supposed 
to be found, is only a guess of 
Malone's.] 

uncouth (ii. 6. 6), strange. Lit. 
" unknown," O.E. unctib" < 
un + crto", p. part, of cunnan, 
to know; cf. Sc. unco. 

vents (ii. 7. 41), utters. Prob- 
ably < Fr. vendre, Lat. vender e, 
to sell; but affected by (1) 
vent, to breathe < Lat. ventum, 
wind ; (2) vent, a hole < Lat. 
finder e, to split. 

videlicet (iv. 1. 97), namely. A 
Lat. loan-word, used with 
affected precision by Rosalind, 
and familiar in the contraction 
viz. 

villain (1) a baseborn person, 
(i. 1. 59), (2) a scoundrel 
(i. 1. 61). O.F. vilein, servile, 
Low Lat. villanus, farm-serv- 
ant, < villa, farmhouse. For 
the degradation of meaning, 
cf. churl. 

warp (ii. 7. 187), see note. M.E. 
warpen, a derivative weak verb 
not the same as werpen, to 
throw, but of Scandinavian 
origin. 



GLOSSARY 



195 



warrant (i. 2. 217), assure, < 
O.F. warant, guarant, protec- 
tor ; cf . Ger. wehren. Audrey 
misuses the word: "Lord 
warrant us " (iii. 3. 5) = " God 
warn (i.e. protect) us " (iv. 1. 
77) . Warn and warrant are ulti- 
mately cognate. 

wind (iii. 3. 105), turn and go. 
< O.E. windan, to turn ; con- 



nected in sense and etymology 
with wend, which is the casual 
verb. 

yond (ii. 4. 64), yonder. In O.E. 
geond is adv. , geon is adj . The 
confusion came from supposing 
that yon was a shortened form 
of yond. 



INDEX OF WORDS 



(The references are to the 
found in the Glossary.) 

abuses, iv. 1. 219. 
against, iv. 1. 152. 
a many, i. 1. 121. 
amaze, i. 2. 115. 
anatomize, i. 1. 161; ii. ' 
56. 

blood, v. 4. 59. 

bolt, v. 4. 67. 

bonny, ii. 3. 8. 

but (followed by nom.), i. 2. 18. 

capable, iii. 5. 23. 
civility, ii. 7. 93. 
contriver, i. 1. 150. 
conversed, v. 2. 66. 
convertites, v. 4. 190. 
cope, ii. 1. 67. 
countenance, i. 1. 19. 
countercheck, v. 4. 84. 

damask, iii. 5. 123. 
dearly, i. 3. 34. 
defied, Epil 21. 
disable, iv. 1. 34. 
dislike, v. 4. 73. 
ducdame, ii. 5. 56. 

estate, v. 2. 13. 
even, v. 4. 154. 
eyne, iv. 3. 50. 

feeder, ii. 4. 99. 
fools, ii. 1. 22. . 
friends, i. 3. 64. 

hand, iv. 3. 29. 

humorous, i. 2. 278 ; iv. 1. 19. 



Notes ad loc. Other words will be 



inland, ii. 7. 97. 

invention, iv. 3. 29. 

it (indefinite object), i. 3. 125. 

liked, Epil. 20. 

make, iv. 1. 162. 
material, iii. 3. 32. 
measure, v. 4. 45. 
memory, ii. 3. 3. 
mistress, i. 3. 42. 
misused, iv. 1. 205. 
modern, ii. 7. 156. 
moralize, ii. 1. 44. 

natural, i. 2. 52. 

observance, v. 2. 102, 104. 
of (= by), ii. 1. 41. 

pathetical, iv. 1. 196. 
perpend, iii. 2. 69. 
prodigal, i. 1. 41. 
pulpiter, iii. 2. 163. 
purgation, i. 3. 55 ; v. 4. 45. 

quintessence, iii. 2. 147. 

ragged, ii. 5. 15. 
rank, iii. 2. 103. 
rascal, iii. 3. 58. 
reasons, i. 3. 6. 
religion, iv. 1. 102. 
religious, iii. 2. 362. 
remorse, i. 3. 72. 



school, i. 1. 5. 
shadow, iv. 1. 222. 

197 



198 



INDEX OF WORDS 



shall, i. 1. 134; 2.257. 
sir, iii. 3. 43. 
stanzos, ii. 5. 19. 

temper, i. 2. 13. 

untreasured, ii. 2. 7. 



vengeance, iv. 3. 48. 
villain, i. 1. 59, 61. 

warp, ii. 7. 187. 
world, i. 1. 125. 

your (= iste), iii. 2. 56; v. 4.63. 



GENERAL INDEX 



active infinitive, i. 2. 121. 

Adam, ii. 1. 5. 

adverb used with adjectival 

force, i. 2. 42, 162-163. 
alliteration, ii. 1. 3; (vowel), ii. 

1.31. 
Arden, i. 1. 121. 
astrological allusions, ii. 7. 6; 

iii. 2. 148. 
Atalanta, iii. 2. 155. 

"Barbary cock-pigeon," iv. 1. 

151. 
bay of Portugal, iv. 1. 212-213. 
bilingualism, i. 1. 72; ii. 1. 50; 

ii.*2. 20; ii. 3. 13; v. 4. 39. 
"broken music," i. 2. 150. 

classical allusions, i. 2. 222 ; i. 3. 
1, 77, 128; iii. 2. 2, 153-156, 
187,249; iv. 1.97, 100; iv. 2. 
3 ; v. 2. 35 ; v. 4. 147. 

Cleopatra, iii. 2. 154. 

Coleridge on Oliver's soliloquy, 
i. 1. 178; on Shakespeare's 
descriptions of scenery, ii. 1. 
31. 

Cupid, i. 3. 1. 

dativus commodi, ii. 1. 21. 
dativus ethicus, iii. 2. 101. 
Diana, iii. 2. 2; iv. 1. 134. 
double negative, i. 1. 91-92; iii. 
5. 26. x 

Dowden on Jaques, iv. 1. 10. 

extravagance of city dames, ii. 
7. 75-76. 



jr aires jurati, v. 4. 107. 

Ganymede, i. 3. 128. 
Gargantua, iii. 2. 238. 



gerundial infinitive, i. 1. 113; 

v. 2. 110. 
"golden world," i. 1. 125.^ 
"good housewife Fortune," i. 2. 

34-35. 
"good wine needs no bush," 

Epil. 3-4. 

Helen, iii. 2. 153. 
hendiadys, iv. 3. 59. 
Hercules, i. 2. 222. 
Hero, iv. 1. 101-106. 
Hesperie, ii. 2. 10. 

intransitive verb used as transi- 
tive, i. 1. 124; iii. 5. 5. 
Irish rat, iii. 2. 187. 
Irish wolves, v. 2. 118-119. 

Jaques compared with Richard II, 
ii. 1. 45; iii. 2. 294; with 
Sterne, ii. 1. 65; contrasted 
with the Duke, ii. 1. 26. 

jest as expression of deep feeling, 
i. 1. 59. 

Jove's tree, iii. 2. 249. 

Judas, iii. 4. 9. 

Juno, i. 3.77; v. 4. 147. 

Jupiter, ii. 4. 1 ; iii. 3. 11. 

Lady Martin on Le Beau, i. 2. 

100-101. 
Leander, iv. 1. 100. 
legal terms, ii. 2. 3; iii. 1. 17; 

iv. 1. 94. 
Lucretia, iii. 2. 156. 

Marlowe, iii. 5. 82. 

music of the spheres, ii. 7. 6. 



omission of preposition, i. 1. 20 
i. 2. 9. 
199 



200 



GENERAL INDEX 



omission of relative (so-called), i. 

2. 149. 
omission of verb, i. 1. 14. 
Ovid, iii. 3. 8. 

pathetic fallacy, i. 3. 106. 
"penalty of Adam," ii. 1. 5. 
phoenix, iv. 3. 17. 
prolepsis, i. 1. 41 ; ii. 7. 45, 132. 

Pythagoras, iii. 2. 187. 

quintain, i. 2. 263. 

references to contemporary 
events, i. 2. 95; ii. 1. 57. 

references to Lodge's novel, i. 1. 
55-56, 98, 113, 143; i. 2. 28, 
133, 232, 237-243, 257, 289- 
295; i. 3. 41, 45, 82, 117; 
ii. 1. 23; iii. 2. 4, 172-266, 
319; iii. 4. 50-63; iii. 5. 99, 
109-135, 126; iv. 1. 124, 206; 
iv. 2. 12; iv. 3. 20, 73, 140, 
148; v. 1. 37; v. 2. 32, 67; 
v. 4. 157-172. 

scriptural allusions, ii. 3. 43; ii. 
4. 6; ii. 5. 63; iii. 1. 6; iii. 2. 
171. 

Shakespeare and the doctrine of 
cycles, ii. 7. 143. 

Shakespeare's authorities, Introd. 
pp. ix seq. ; Appendix A; his 
belief in the "good old times," 
ii. 3. 49; his contempt for 



foreign fashions, ii. 5. 19; his 
contrast of Nature with other 
powers of life, i. 2. 43 ; his di- 
dactic manner, ii. 3. 48; his 
epic manner, ii. 7. 65 ; his in- 
terest in ancient Rome, iv. 2. 
3 ; v. 2. 35 ; his local color, ii. 
7. 148; iii. 2. 186; iii. 5. 74; 
iv. 3. 115; his parodies, ii. 5. 
52; his self-criticism, ii. 1. 19; 
iii. 3. 19 ; his similes, iii. 2. 39 ; 
his sympathy with animals, ii. 
1. 38; his treatment of time, 
i. 1. 99; i. 3.73; ii. 1.2. 

singular verb with plural subject, 
i. 2. 124. 

superstition about the toad, ii. 1. 
14. 

textual notes, i. 1. 1, 101, 103 
i. 2. 3, 38, 43, 55, 89, 131, 175 
220, 224, 284 ; i. 3. 11, 99, 104 
ii. 1. 5, 18; ii. 3. 71; ii. 4. 1 
38, 49; ii. 5. 3; ii. 7. 55, 73 
iii. 2. 93, 103, 111, 163; iii 
3.56; iii. 4. 16; iii. 5. 17, 22 
iv. 1. 19; iv. 2. 13; iv. 3. 88 
105, 156 ; v. 3. 16, 25, 31, 37 
v. 4. 121. 

thou and you, i. 1. 78-82. 

transmigration of souls, iii. 2. 187 

Troilus, iv. 1. 97. 

women on the stage, Epil. 18. 



*i 



V5 



/ *• 







*oV* 



*« 4*° ♦•' 




4** 








o • » 











1 *° 

! Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 



'* 



Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Feb. 2009 



* *3$ PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



• iESfoSCW. 



4<J*7\ 



% 



P 









iF ... °^ "° ' * * A^ ^ 



4^ 














u * 







■•••" *°° ^ * 






.0^ 



v»Cr 

.4o A 



Hm 



8hH 



I 



m 



■■■■J 

■ 
■ 

BMW 

HI 

■■1 









■ 

■ 

■ 

■■■■■■ 



HH 

■ 



■ 
■ ■ 

HH 
■ 

'• ' , kn^ »» 



■ 
■ , ■ 

I9HHBBWH <\< i : I ■VBVB1 ■■ 




